Gentle Years

I have a very early memory of being at my grandmother's house on Thanksgiving Day.  We were leaving to go home for Thanksgiving, so I don't know if that means that when I was small we would have two meals, or if we were just there getting or having pie.  My grandmother made both chocolate cream pie and mincemeat pie, so we might have been there to get a pie for my father-I'll have to ask older members of the family if we ever ate there. 

My grandparents were born in 1883, 1891, 1894 and 1897, so this grandmother was the only grandparent alive when I was born and she was 70 then.  She lived next door to us-I grew up in my great grandparents' farmhouse, called The Old Plantation-we could literally walk through the pasture to my grandmother's house.  Any time that I smell fresh baked bread, homemade soap, peonies, lilacs, or apple blossoms, I think of her.  Any time that I hear a rousing gospel song, I think of her.  When winter nights are filled with the smell of wood smoke, I think of her. 

She was a very tall woman, almost six feet tall, and at night when she got ready for bed she would take down her coronet of white hair and kneel beside her bed to say her prayers.  Her hair touched the floor.  She wore a flowered wrap-around apron, the kind that covered your top and bottom, and I loved her hugs.  She played the piano but could only remember a couple of hymns by heart.  Her television was only plugged in two or three times a year, when she knew that Billy Graham was going to be on. 

Her "settin" room was unused, and all socializing was done at the dining room table.  She kept aluminum cans, washed out, in a storage area beside her kitchen window seat, a window that was framed with the longest English ivy I ever saw.  We would take the cans out and stack them like bowling pins, then play bowling on the kitchen floor, which was a trick because there was a hump in the middle of the floor so you had to really get your roll down to hit the cans. 

She and I would spend hours together making scrapbooks and ornaments for missionaries and the children they cared for, and we made patchwork quilts and rag rugs.  Grammie had playing cards in the drawer-Crazy Eights and Go Fish, stuff like that-and coloring books and crayons with them.  Every week or so she made homemade doughnuts and we got to help.  Every week she made homemade bread and sent a pan of rolls over to my father.

I am so thankful for having had this woman in my life.  Her name was Ruth.  My little sister is named for her.

Now I hope to be as good a grandmother as my own grandmother was.

Aidan's Thanksgiving Day decoration

We all ate at separate houses, and then Pretty Baby brought over the pie.  She made blueberry for G and apple for the rest of us.  Her favorite is pumpkin.  My favorite is custard.  Pie is one of those things, isn't it, where everyone has a different favorite?  Pretty Baby is great at making pies! 

Our daughter in-law and first daughter, above, with MB; our son in-law and first son, below with Aidan and RB

The little cousins playing together.  MB is two months younger than BB, so he will end up a year behind him in school due to birthday cut-offs, and three years behind his brother even though they are just over two years apart.  It is such an arbitrary thing-when we were young they would have been in the same grade together.

Today I got MB to myself for a while.  He is such a sweet baby, easy to love and easy to watch.  He smiles just like his mother when she was little, has a thick head of hair like her, but his eyes remind me of his aunt every time I see him.  Overall, he bears a strong resemblance to my three biological children. 

I am sure that when Aidan has children, I will be looking for features and expressions that remind me of him as well.

So much to tell.

Yesterday was our final social worker visit.  We are hoping to have our homestudy updated by our current agency/social worker as well, but since they are phasing out the adoption program in our state, we have to wait and see if they will do this for us first (they will still do adoptions in the other states they service).

On Sunday Aidan said he was having a hard time eating because his tooth hurt.  He showed it to us, and he was wiggling it all over the place.  Yesterday it fell out and right now he is sleeping on a dollar bill just waiting to be added to his savings-he got a cute little wallet of his own on our family trip to Maine and loves using it.

Let's see; what else?  Pretty Baby and her husband had their fourth wedding anniversary within the last week.  Golden Baby's wife had her birthday.  G had his birthday.  And MB had his birthday, turning one.  Enough, already?  Check out the centerpieces that my creative daughter made for the tables at her son's birthday party.

One of the pictures needs explaining.  That's the one of MB and his cousin BB.  BB isn't used to playing with other kids, so when I found them together on the step and saw MB trying to get his head at just the right angle, I knew a bite was coming and stopped them.  BB didn't understand.  As soon as I got MB to stop, he then offered his hand and then his index finger to MB, still not knowing that a bite was what MB wanted.  So he probably left the party wondering why his grandmother had a problem with that, since I stuck around until MB's biting impulse passed.

Pretty Baby turned 26 this week and G's sister turned 50.  So we had some parties to host/attend.  This first set of pictures is of Pretty Baby, Little Baby, our new daughter in-law, JC, and the four little boys.

This next set is from my sister in-law's surprise party.

And here are some random shots of Aidan.  He has been begging for corn on the cob, and he loves to think of himself as a cowboy.  G and I are old-fashioned about guns.  We think that kids who grow up knowing about them and have used them/seen the damage that they cause are not the kids who pull the trigger on strangers or loved ones, but that the kids who play violent video games are-they become dissociative.  So, yeah, Aidan has a capgun six shooter strapped onto his waist.

Today is GB's big day.

Just look at how excited BB is by his parents' vow taking:

There was no best man-Pretty Baby was the honor attendant for her brother.

Little Baby actually got dolled up for the occasion:

My third brother officiated at the ceremony:

The bride's father was pretty emotional-she is not only his baby girl, but also his first child.

And then there was the dancing.  We learned that Aidan loves to dance....

...that there is still no way for me to reach my son's height....(we danced to the only Backstreet Boys song he can tolerate-"Mom, you always were the perfect fan")

...and that the newlyweds dance together beautifully:

Notice the unharried look on my face?  That's because my child is the groom and not the bride!  Her mother is probably passed out by now.

Yesterday was RB's third birthday party.  Today is my great nephews's second birthday party.  And tomorrow is Aidan's first day of kindergarten. 

The first two are very exciting, but the third one is very scary for my son.  I will be going in to work late so that I can take him to school, and G will be leaving work early to pick him up (he is terrified that we will put him on a bus-a bus took him away from his foster home, remember) and just plain scared of the change.  This week I sent him to his old daycare, which he loved after the first few days, and still he cried the first morning.  His best friend was out on vacation, so that added to his upset, and of course he was not used to getting up and leaving the house early in the morning, either-part of why I sent him.  So this week will definitely be tough.

RB's best friend (center) and Aidan's beloved daycare teacher, both guests at the party.

The birthday boy with LB

The two year old birthday boy

His Sisters

His Parents-My Nephew and His Wife

We got the pool filled enough for the kids to cool off.  PB and I went toy store shopping with the three boys-what fun-and Aidan got a baseball bat, plus I picked up birthday gifts for BB and RB.  And today we went to BB's first birthday party.  Then on the way home I stopped in the meadow where my brothers were haying and took these shots of my nephew's kids on the hay and my brother on the tractor.

LB's hair is almost as blue as the pool lining, though you can't really tell in this picture of she and MB

Some people think one year olds need motorized cars.  Here is BB with a remote controlled car run by his uncle, behind him.  And then, like most kids, he wanted to play with the packaging more than the toys.

Aidan also has a great love of cooking.  It really doesn't matter what; he loves to measure, pour, stir, everything.  He even loves to wash dishes.  Here he is actually cooking with a wok that my sister gave us years ago.

This weekend was G's family reunion.  Here are some shots of Aidan playing ball, BB trying to get in on the game, BB and GB enjoying the sun, and Aidan hanging out with his father.

All tuckered out from that batting practice.

The trip to the elementary school playground was so that Aidan could get used to his new school and play on the equipment, but the boys spent most of their time in the dirt.

Today we went to my mother's gravel pit.  Aidan was awed by the place.  I'll have to tell him that both of his grandmothers own gravel pits!

We also stopped in at my sister's bakery, where she and my niece were busily preparing for Saturday's sales.

Then later in the evening we met PB, RB, and MB at the park in town.

On Friday night and Saturday, Aidan was pretty sick from his shots-feverish and tired-so we laid low, but on Saturday afternoon we went to visit my mother and were just in time for a pretty powerful and short-lived thunderstorm.  We sat with her out on the porch and listened to the thunder, lightning, and windchimes.  Aidan loved it.  He has asked at least a dozen times since when we could hang windchimes on our porch (I think I got some from a brother for Christmas, but the porch wasn't built until last year and the ceiling still isn't finished, so I haven't hung them yet).

Mom turned 81 on Sunday.  She stopped hiking the mountain for her birthday two summers ago, which is how Aidan and I got her to ourselves on Saturday afternoon (a very rare and special treat), but on Sunday all of the hikers were gathered at the house and at the bog to play, so we joined them for a while.

Then in the evening we joined GB and JC for a cookout using the new grill she got at last weekend's bridal shower.  BB is walking now, and he is curious about everything!

When we got home, to yet more rain, Aidan and I sat on the porch and talked about windchimes, and "camping" out on the porch sometime when it is raining.  The fact that he had a sleeping bag was news to him, so of course he had to see it right away, and he then spread it out on the t.v. room floor to watch Iron Man.

Here she is wearing her "hat" of gift ribbons.

Here are the boys, enjoying the big lawn.

Here is my great niece, who is the same age as Aidan, showing off her barnyard.

And here she is looking like a character out of Tom Sawyer, or a little English miss with her rubber boots.  She says that she is an adventurer like Diego!

Here is my youngest niece giving my other great niece a push on the swingset

And Aidan joined in.