REALLY?

1. Phil and I were in Costco late this afternoon. "Shouldn't we get a chicken?" he asked.

Getting a roasted chicken is the highlight of Phil's life. Well, almost. Getting a Costco chicken means I won't have to cook dinner so it's a win-win. So we got a chicken, and then we went into the fruit and veggies room. We had been in there maybe five seconds when he said, "Hurry!"

"Why?" I asked.

"Because, he said, with a worried look on his face, "my chicken is cooling off."

Really, Phil.


2. I was in the living room, talking on the phone with Hillary, tonight.

"Maddy (age 11) was going swimming with Bailey today," Hillary said. "A huge thunderstorm came up and Maddy came in the living room and threw herself on the couch in despair. Face down."

"Face down, Mom," she said. "What am I going to do with her?"

"You better watch her," I said. "You know what happened to Elizabeth when puberty hit?"

All during this conversation Elizabeth was downstairs, with the TV on. Obviously she has excellent eavesdropping capabilities.

"What?" she yelled. "What did I do?"

Then she got on the phone and said, "In my defense, I am sweet and lovely." Hillary and I were speechless. "Sweet and lovely," Elizabeth continued, "With bouts of naughtiness."

Really, Elizabeth, bouts of naughtiness?


3. One day when Liza (age 11) was here, she was sitting on the couch and had her feet up. The bottoms of her socks were so worn out you could see her feet through the weave.

"Liza," Hillary said, "nice socks."

"Thanks," Liza said, "They're breezy!"

Which sounds like a good thing to me. Somebody ought to market socks that way. Breezy socks. Really. Liza should get royalties. Really, she should.


4. Hillary told me that last night Maddy had a glass of water and a glass of milk at dinner. She took a drink of her milk, pulled a horrible face and said, "Ugh, milk. What a horrible surprise."

"What a horrible surprise," is now a by word in their house. I think that phrase can be used for lots of situations. It's kind of like the word "Interesting." Sometimes it means interesting and sometimes it means interesting! Know what I mean? I'm sure you have had some interesting things happen in your life, and so have I. Really.


5. Hillary and I continued talking. How we got on this subject I don't know.

"I hate the word 'beloved'", she said.

"You do? Even when it refers to Jesus?"

"Yes," she said, "and I hate the word 'gorgeous,' too."

Now that this is published on my blog, if any of her siblings read it--which is unlikely--they will have the perfect ammunition for getting her goat. They will probably tell her they think that one of the reasons Jesus was beloved was because he was gorgeous.

I hope this isn't sacrilegious, talking about Jesus this way. Really, I hope it isn't.


6. Which reminds me, Trent was always good at "getting people's goats." He probably still is, he has seven children to use as victims. When he was still living home, one day he was teasing one of the kids (I can't remember which one) Whoever it was came running to me, tattling.

"He's got your goat," I replied.

Whereupon the child turned around, marched back to Trent and yelled, "Give my goat back."

"He gets your goat all the time." I said. "He has a whole herd of them by now."

"Give them back!" the child yelled.

"Where will you keep them?" Trent asked. "A whole herd of goats is a lot to take care of."

"They can live in the back yard and eat grass," the child said.

Now one begins to wonder, did that child really think Trent had real goats? And then I wonder, no, I'm sure of it, they must take after Phil's side of the family.

Really.

THE GREAT SLEEPOVER

These three were born only eight weeks apart. Last year I owed all of them a birthday present and so I hosted a sleepover. After dinner there was a treasure hunt. Oh, no! Not another clue, where is the treasure already?


At the end of the treasure hunt they found new books to read, odd socks and some treats.

Time to get the beds made and to test them out--very dramatically.

This lump is Willow. She's a willowy lump.
Liza in green.
Maddy o'the long pants.
These two are always up for some adventure at Grandma's house.
Willow is right there too, plotting fun things to do.
Like making faces when Grandma wants to take pictures.
These are three of my treasures. How I love them.

The odd socks.
Roughhousing.

Girls! Calm down!
Okay, we're calm, honest we are. See how angelic we are?
Yah, right!
Okay, it's really time for you to be asleep.
We are!
The next morning Lisa and Maddy learned how to make Swedish pancakes. Willow was having a wee melt down and went back to bed.
Then they wrote down the recipes to put in their new recipe boxes. Cherry cream cheese pie was one of the recipes, taco soup and, of course, Swedish pancakes.
These two waited until they were home to have a melt down. Even though I had warned them that there would be NO MELTDOWNS or their parents would NEVER, EVER let me host a sleepover again. They had meltdowns anyway. What's a Grandma to do?

FREE CLEAN-OUT LABOR!

One day, after our Christmas family dinner, I started finding these notes: "Grandma, remember to have me come over in the summer and clean out. Love, Maddy." I found three of these, one was on the bathroom door, one was on a bag of leftover Christmas candy and one was in my church bag.

This was in the kitchen. How she got up there to write this I'll never know. I wonder if the "Love Maddy," was written as she was teetering off the edge of the sink. It looks kind of like it was written under some teetering-stress.

On the stove.See this hutch?
And this one? No one (in their right mind) needs two hutches but the second one belonged to my Aunt Dorothy, along with a Duncan Fhyfe table and I couldn't NOT take them when we cleaned her out apartment so many years ago. So, there they are, two hutches, stuffed to the brim and then some.I'm thinking that they would look good filled with books! What do you think? Then one of them could go into a bedroom. Right now Phil has two teetering stacks of books by the bed and I'm afraid that will bump into them in the dark-of-night and be trapped until morning.

Besides that, Lovely (Awesome) Lisa (see post here and her very own awesome blog here--her current post is on organizing papers--which multiply when not looking, I'm convinced) says we keep too much stuff. "Only keep things that are useful or beautiful that you really love," she says. But she allows herself a few unlimited things, lipsticks, music, shoes and books. So, if I'm going to be Lisa's humble follower I can have all the books I (and Phil, the great church book collector) want. Right?

Maddy has two cousins (we had three granddaughters within seven weeks one year) who I think would love to be co-conspirators in the great "clean out" of the summer. They are begging for another sleepover and this might be just one of the things we could do together. That and a midnight run to Wendy's*, just like Elizabeth and I used to do.

So, Maddy's clever tactic for a clean out may really happen. She's be so happy and so will I. I bet Lisa will come over and clap and cheer too, she's that kind of awesome.

*Shh. Don't tell their parents about the midnight run. The girls all had varying degrees of meltdowns after the first (sleep deprived) sleepover and I'm treading on thin ice suggesting a second one.

GRANDPAREN'T'S DAY AT RUBY'S SCHOOL

Today was Grandparent's day at Ruby's school for all the kindergarten students. I went to Ruby's class but couldn't find her. So I went to a different class and she wasn't there either. Back to the 1st class and low and behold, there she was on the front row, probably thinking, what is Grandma doing, going from class to class?

We had four activities to do together. I realized Ruby writes half in capitols and half in lower case. But, she is sounding out words and almost ready for the leap to real reading. It's always exciting when I see that happening in a child. A whole new world will open up for her.Recess. Who cares if the coat is buttoned right?See this? Three friends, having a private moment that no one else knew about. Then just two friends. This little girl and her mother met Ruby and her mother when the two girls were just babies. They didn't see each other again until the girls were in the same class. Hillary remembered because this little girls name is Sweden and she remembered the baby Sweden. Now the girls are friends. After recess they put on Turkey hats and performed for us in the gym. They sang six funny, wonderful songs.And then we went home. Ruby told me how to get there by the back roads. Well, Hillary on the cell phone helped some, too. We go that way, Grandma!My happy five year old granddaughter that I love so much. You really can't see them here but she has a sprinkling of freckles, just like her Momma did at that age.

Don't you just love that face? Me too.And Baby Daisy? This is how she looked three days ago when she went in to see if she needed to stay under the "lights" so her jaundice would go away. She looks tan doesn't she? But...she passed and didn't have to be under those lights. I think her dark complexion has something to do with my inability to manage my camera at all times.
And today, she had another test and passed again. But before she left with her daddy for the test she cried like no one I have EVER heard. Her little heart was broken. Why, we just don't know. She calmed down and went happily with Dad.

Don't you just love that little baby face? Me too.

And I told the other girl in this family, Miss Maddy--seen here, catching a ride this summer from Miss Ruby--that I would come again on Monday, and I would have a story recorded for her. It's going to be a doozy...I think...I'm still coming up with a plot and the cast of characters, but for that girl--who LOVES a story--I'm going to do my best.

She deserves the best. All our grandchildren deserve the best. We all do. I hope we are all helping each other to have good experiences here, on planet earth.

This is what I wish for all of us, that we could be this happy. I know trying times have to come but after the angst, happiness like this.
Don't you just love that happy face? Me too.

OUR NEWEST GRANDDAUGHTER--DAISY

This is baby Daisy having her first bath. She had been all stretched out, so content, when the nurse swabbed her down and then put her head under the faucet and scrubbed it. Daisy was not happy. Her lungs are functional, that's for sure.Daisy's Daddy comforted her.I accidentally erased the photo that Max sent me of Daisy and her Momma, taken just a minute after her birth. I'll have to have him send it again. Here's a photo from Hillary's Blog. Max is already giving Daisy a helping hand. He loves all his girls. He has three, now. Four, counting Hillary, Daisy's momma. This is two days old. Being born is so tiring.Her big sister, Ruby.

Ruby, Phil--Daisy's grandpa--and Maddy.
Daisy had to come by C-section because her sisters were so big at birth and the doctor says he lost two weeks of his life trying to get them here safely. But Daisy is the smallest one of all. Nine pounds nine ounces doesn't seem small but she is. I think she will loose that baby fat quickly and think she may take after her great-grandma Snyder, who was just five feet tall. I guess time will tell.

Phil, had to have throat surgery the same day as Hillary had her surgery. Almost at exactly the same time! I abandoned Phil, pre-surgery, to go see if the baby had come. Indeed she had. I made it on time to get her first bath photos.

Phil is recovering nicely--he had an esophageal pouch that had to be--not removed--but incorporated into the esophagus. He said he had "popped a gizzard." You can see where my children get their odd sense of humor.

He is supposed to eat soft food for several days and tonight he blended spare ribs (boneless), corn, noodles and sauce with some water and poured his dinner into a bowl. I couldn't watch. It looked like what gruel must look like.

So, all in all, last week was a good one for us. The birth of our newest little one. Phil's throat fixed--it had been bothering him for close to ten years.

Baby Daisy has some jaundice and is spending time under the "lights." Both her sisters also had jaundice and it was harder on Hillary than anyone. They let Daisy go home with portable lights but she will have to be checked at the hospital tomorrow. We're keeping our fingers crossed that the jaundice will be under control.

Congratulations to Max and Hillary and thank you for giving us another granddaughter to love.