November 30, 2014

Hi everyone,

My current desktop photo is one of us girls having a bad hair day. Itsy’s little topknot has made it’s way to the side. We could maybe call it a sideknot if it had more hair in it instead of barely hanging on like it is in this photo. When I saw this, I laughed and hurried to grab my camera. I’m guessing Itsy had a rub-fest with her blanket and this is the result of that.

I miss my mother.

As I sit here writing on Saturday night, getting an early start on my Sunday Letter, I have to tell you that I miss my mother a lot.

“Why Peg? Where’s your mother?” you ask.

She’s in the hospital.

“What happened?” you ask.

My oldest and much adored sister Patti sent me a text message early Wednesday morning. Momma’s Life Alert had called her.

Momma had pushed the button on her Life Alert.

She was having pain in her chest.

Life Alert sent an ambulance to get her and they took her to the hospital.

Her heart is fine but she has pneumonia again.

I have spoken with my mother almost every night for more than fifteen years. Now I haven’t spoken with her in four days!

Are you feeling my pain?

I don’t want to call Momma at the hospital. I want her to rest and get better.

She knows I love her.

Still, I really miss that woman!

Okay! Onward!

I have so many exciting things to talk about this week, I hardly know where to begin! At least one of my stories could be a letter all in itself, replete with photos. Another story might cover two or three pages, with no photos. Then there are updates.

“Updates?” you wonder.

Yes. If last week wasn’t a life-time ago for you, you may remember I talked about persimmon seeds in my last letter. I said that I thought persimmon seeds were tiny. I said the ombudsmen said the photo I sent him was raccoon droppings and persimmon seeds. I said I would open up a persimmon and find out for myself. Do you remember that? I just want you to know that I did open a persimmon up and it did have five big seeds in it. Persimmon seeds are NOT tiny. In fact, they are so big, in this tiny little fruit, that there isn’t much room for pulp!

“Did you taste it?” you ask.

Yeah. I did. But only very tentatively. It was fruity and sweet and left my fingers sticky.

The texture was mushy.

And I didn’t really eat any of it.

I understand persimmon make good jelly and deer love them. And now I know that raccoons like persimmons too!

Something else I talked about not very long ago was assumptions. Do you remember? I told you that assumptions rarely turn out well for me. Did that not sound like a woman who had learned her lesson about assuming?

Well, to my chagrin, I did it again.

“What did you do this time?” you wonder, and you don’t sound all that surprised. After all, a leopard can’t change his spots, can he? Although I try hard not to assume things, it always seems to catch me off guard.

It is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than open it and remove all doubt.

And sometimes the same thing applies to the written word.

Stephanie, my beautiful first-cousin-once-removed, emailed me asking for my address.

It’s getting on to Thanksgiving, I think to myself. Some people start sending Christmas cards about this time. I bet Steph wants to send me a Christmas card.

Well that is a bet I lost. But what makes it embarrassing is in my return email I said something to the effect that I haven’t decided if I’m going to send out Christmas cards this year. Now she knows what a dumb-butt I am! I couldn’t have just sent her my address and not written anything else, could I? Geeesh!

But blood is thicker than water and I know she forgives me my faux pas.

“If not a Christmas card, then what did she send you?” you ask.

Stephanie sent me the nicest thank you card, ever!

Did you guess that?

Yeah. Sometimes the most obvious things escape me. But what can I say?

I want to take a minute here and tell my cousin Lorraine, youngest daughter of my beloved Aunt Marie, that she did good. She and her husband Mark have raised a very fine daughter. One she can be proud of!

My best guy and I got to hang out for a couple of hours Thanksgiving morning...

There was a sale on cell phones and Mom and Dad needed new phones. Only a few were available so they had to be there early. Would I come and stay with Andrew while they went?

Absolutely!

The things this little almost two-year-old knows, understands and can do never ceases to amaze me! I was there, at Andrew’s house, for about twenty-five minutes before he woke up. I heard him. He made some noises and I knew he was awake. I went in, sing-sawing “Hello Andrew! Hi Baby!” I could see the confusion in his eyes as I greeted him. I totally was not what he expected!

“What are you doing here?” his look says. But I let him wake up slowly and I talked to him as soothingly as I could manage.

“Come on,” I said, and Andrew stood up and held his arms up to me as I lifted him from his crib. I hugged him and kissed him and changed his bottom and carried him into the living room.

“You want some milk?” I asked and set him on the couch. Kevin told me Andrew might want milk when he wakes up, then he maybe would or would not eat something. I got Andrew some milk and we chilled on the couch for a while watching the Thanksgiving Day Parade as he drank it.

 

“Are you hungry?” I asked Andrew and I got up and got him a cereal bar. “Do you want this?” I asked when I got back and held it out to him. He took it and checking out the package he realized it wasn’t open and he handed it back to me. I opened just the top and handed it back to Andrew. He stuck his little fingers in the opening I had made but he couldn’t get the bar out. He tried to give it back to me, but I refused.

 

“You can do it,” I said encouragingly. Andrew didn’t argue with me, he just pulled the package back and started working on it.

Victory!

 

And to the victor go the spoils.

 

Andrew ate about a third of his breakfast, then he was done.

I honestly don’t remember how I came to be on the floor, which is where I was when I snapped this photo of Andrew and Andrew is so patient with me! He waits until he hears my camera click before he moves on to other, even more adorable poses and I kid you not! Andrew totally plays to the camera!

 

I think Andrew accepts my photography as part of who I am. He knows it’s what I do. But in this instance I couldn’t get the camera to focus on his face before he climbed off the couch. I still like the photo though and wanted to show it to you.

“Andrew,” I said. Andrew is a man of few words, but he stopped to listen to what I had to say. “I think my Nook is my bag,” I told him. It’s so funny. His little head snapped on his neck so fast as he turned to look at the table. He spots something up there. He thinks it’s my bag, but it’s not. He reached the table in super-sonic speed and launches himself up onto the bench.

“That’s not my bag,” I called.

Andrew stops.

“I think my bag’s in the chair.”

Andrew climbs back down and goes for the chair. It’s funny. There is more than one chair in this house but he somehow zeroes in on the one that holds my bag. Maybe my sweater on the chair back is a dead giveaway.

I got up to help him get the Nook out. I didn’t want the contents of my bag strewn across the room. He stood on tip-toes as he peeked inside. “There it is,” I said. Andrew reached in and grabbed a colorful carry-all. “Not that one,” I told him, “the pink one.” He let go of the colorful one and grabbed the pink Nook case and hauled it out with all the expertise of fishermen reeling in a prize fish! And his smile was no less proud either!

I am not surprised that Andrew didn’t know my Nook was in a pink case. When he comes to my house and plays with my Nook, it has never been in a case, it just sits on the headboard. I only put it in a case when I am toting it somewhere.

Regardless that Andrew has never seen my Nook in a case before, he figured out how to get it out of there pretty quickly.

 

He knows how to turn it on and he knows how to move things around on the screen. Look at that finger action, would ya! Perfect.

 

Andrew knows how to use a touch screen. He knows how to turn pages by swiping and he knows how to make things smaller by pinching his fingers on the screen. He is so smart!

Andrew loves technology. I have seen him hug my Nook. Both to his chest and to his face.

But today, this Thanksgiving morning, Andrew picked up the Nook as I sat there capturing the moments on my camera, and put it in his lap. He’s working on closing my puzzle down when he hears something on the TV that draws his attention.

 

I don’t even know what it was but when it was over Andrew picked up my Nook, carried it over to the step, set it down and made himself comfortable.

 

I watched Andrew for a while before I called him over. “Let me see it,” I said.

Andrew brought me the Nook and sat in my lap and that’s when I realized that he had wet the whole way through his PJ’s.

“Let’s go change your bottom first,” I told him and set the Nook aside. He didn’t fuss as I scooped him up in airplane mode and we zoomed off on our way to the changing station in his room. Upon pushing the door open with my stocking clad foot, I realized I didn’t have a hand to turn the light switch on with.

“Andrew, can you turn the light on?” I asked.

His giggles stopped and he became serious as I held him up to the switch. He concentrated on holding his little finger out and as I stood there he found the bottom of the switch and pushed it up. Just like that. He didn’t do it wrong. He didn’t try to push down first. He knew on was up.

I changed him and he is the nicest baby to change. He can push his bottom up so I can get his diaper under him. “Thank you Babe,” I tell him when he complies to my requests.

I only had one problem. Don’t laugh at me. I didn’t know how-and I still don’t know how-to use the new-fangled diaper disposal systems they have out these days. I figured out how to open the top and I put the diaper in, but I couldn’t find a button or anything to make it suck it down into the bottom part. And pushing it wasn’t working! How the heck does this thing work? I wondered as Andrew patiently waited. Where’s that button? I looked and looked and looked! I found the button to open the bottom to change the bag in the system, but that’s the only thing I figured out how to do.

I meant to apologize to the kids when they got home about leaving the wet diaper on the changing station. But I didn’t know what to do with it. I already had one diaper stuck in the top of the diaper bucket!

Sigh.

Once Andrew was changed, I set him on the floor and he zoomed out of the room.

“Andrew!” I called. “You forgot to turn the light off.” He stopped.

“Hmmmm?” he asked in mid-stride.

“Come and turn the light off for me,” I said. He has such a glow about him! Andrew zoomed back to me and I scooped him up and held him so he could reach the switch and with one finger extended, Andrew turned the light off. I set him down, secretly pleased with my genius grandson, and off he went.

Once back in the living room, I settled on the couch and Andrew picked up the Nook. I called Mike to see what he was up to, and Andrew!

That little stinker!

He set my Nook on the floor and looking right at me, he stepped on my Nook.

“Get off my Nook,” I told him and he did. But it seemed like it was some kind of test. I hung up with Mike and suggested to Andrew that we should put the Nook away. He fussed a little but then he spotted his hat, sitting on the end table.

He picked it up and put it on his head and Nook forgotten, went off to explore his toy box.

 

Andrew has some wooden puzzles. As I quietly watched, Andrew got his puzzles open and dumped out, then, one by one, he fit them back into the correct spots. I was amazed, but didn’t say anything to him.

When he was done I helped get the puzzles all packed up and he put them away.

 

“Hey Droopy Draws, pull your pants up,” I said.

Andrew reached down and grabbed a handful of denim just above his knees and pulled. But it didn’t do any good and I just smiled.

Andrew took one of his puzzles and went to the window box, climbed up and lined up the pieces in the groove of the window. I could imagine that he has spent many hours playing here and I just watched as he pulled the pieces out and lined them all up, facing all in the same direction.

 

“He’s a little OCD,” his mama once told me and I could see it here.

He was still playing in the window when Mom and Dad came home.

I wonder if they know how special I think Andrew is.

Let’s call this one done.

Lots and lots and LOTS of love,

Peg and Mike