To Grandma's House We Go

Lots of little moments at Grandma's house--I think of my own memories of going to my Grandma's house, and to me, it's the little things that mean the most all these years later. So I want to document some of the essence of Grandma's house for my children.

The doll house is a classic, Many many hours have been spent on this basket of toys and doll house. Alina took her turn. One of the funniest moments when we were getting used to all the new toys was when Alina set up that little blue chair (on the floor, the doll-sized one) in the upright position and attempted to sit in it. Grandma was the one to catch on to what she was doing. We promptly brought up a kid-size chair from the basement, and Alina was content to let the dolly sit in the doll size chair and she had her own little girl size chair.

Bathing in the laundry room sink--This is the perfect amount of water and space for a small child.

It takes a while for Alina to warm up to new people. Grandpa made a valiant effort to give Alina her space, while still trying to pull her in with some silly antics. 

 Reeeeeeach . . . .

 Got it! But she still kept her distance as well as she could.

She eventually warmed up to sitting on Grandpa's lap.

Alina loves to try on shoes. She found a few pairs around the property to stick her toes into.

Grandma is the best read-aloud Grandma ever. When I was a little girl, we would be just like this--cozied up to her while she read lots of chapter books to us. She read to us as long as one of her kids played with her hair and another one or two rubbed her feet with lotion. That was a smart way to wind down your day, Mom! The tradition continued with Grandma reading aloud to the kiddos.

 They were trying to finish the book before one of the families of cousins left town, so the photo above was the bedtime reading, and by 7 am the next morning, they were back at it, in the photo below.

I was reminded that it is challenging to keep a 1-year old out of the suitcases while I am traveling--particularly at this stage, when she likes to pull everything out of its place to inspect it. She tried on her brother's underwear and was so proud that she got them all the way on. 

 Sorry, Alina, Spiderman is for your brother.

School must go on--it's the best thing to have flexibility in our school schedule so we can take a trip like this when it's not the busy season for other families to travel during their breaks. The only drawback is that school came with us--we still got in our daily lessons. It helped that our cousins were in another room of Grandma's house doing the same thing. We wanted to finish on time so we could play with them. Our attempt to let them do their schoolwork together was an epic fail--so for the sanity of the adults, we let them study on their own then they played together the rest of the day. (The other cousins were used to studying with their brothers around. It was David that was too excited to have seat mates, and he disrupted everyone else until I separated him back out.) I think this is the desk Grandpa had in college, so it was a fun place for David to study math.

 Let it be known, let it be said that Alina likes food. In fact, she loves it. If I don't clean her up right after she's done eating, the food ends up painted all over her head and face and chair.

 She's always happy to turn her meal time into a subsequent art time.

 On our last night in town, we watched the NCAA March Madness championship. Alina loves balls, so she was enthralled for a bit of it.

When she lost interest in the basket ball game, Alina put on these socks. Ever so patiently, she put them over her toes, her heel, then pulled them up to her knees. It took her a long time. My mom suggested that I pack a pair of socks to entertain her on the plane the next day, because she stayed so engaged for a long time.

Thank you, Grandma and Grandpa, for letting us come to your house for such a long visit. We love being around you, and I love to watch my kids make memories with you. We all came home feeling more loved and refreshed because we had been with you for such a nice, long time.

Grandpa the Great (ie Grandpa Ray)

 On our recent trip to UT, we got to spend some time with extended family, including my 94 year old Grandpa Ray. Time with him is so treasured. He is the Patriarch of extensive posterity, and I see him as being so in tune with the needs, struggles and the joy of his posterity. I love him so. 

Since Grandma passed away two years ago, Grandpa has become a very tender hearted man. He listens intently, and offers counsel with more feeling than I have ever heard from him. He misses Grandma, and has seen some ways that he could have been a better husband to her in their 69 years of marriage by validating her feelings. He longs for the day when he can do that for her when they meet again. But for now, I see that he is acting on his desire to be emotionally close with those he loves by listening and validating family members that he can influence right now. While I was visiting Utah, I was blessed to be able to be the recipient of that tender concern for my well being. I will always treasure that experience, as it is unique to this time in his life, and not something that I have seen in all my previous years of loving this dear man.

David quickly attached himself to Grandpa Ray, and they bonded by watching a basketball game together. Last summer we were driving around Anchorage and David declared, "Those mountains are so bumpy that I think they are as wrinkly as Grandpa Ray's face." This comment was made totally out of the blue, and I got such a giggle out of it!

 Alina kept finding his cane tucked away in the corner, and would bring it to him. Grandpa rode with me to and from Orem for two days, with my children in the car as well. Alina was still getting used to all of the new faces she was meeting, as well as their names. Just based on me calling this man by "Grandpa" in the car, Alina caught on that this was Grandpa. When we were around her Grandpa Clifton, she still would respond to Grandpa Ray as being the man called Grandpa. That's hard to explain, but basically I was really impressed by how much Alina picked up just by listening to conversations in the car. She quietly soaks in a lot of information, and I wonder what other dots she has connected in her world just by listening and watching snippets that I think are inconsequential. 

She kept going to Grandpa for help with her sunglasses that didn't seem to want to stay on her little nose.

Grandpa was absolutely delighted with interacting with this tiny great granddaughter of his. They were both having a good time!

I am so glad that my children were able to spend time with my dear Grandpa Ray, or Grandpa the Great as he is known among his 200+ great-grandchildren.

Traveling and the Parable of the Camel

 I felt so blessed to take a recent trip to UT. It was a power-packed three weeks, and I'll detail some of  the fun in more posts very soon, but to begin I'll document our travel. 

Even the hardest-core travelers looked up long enough to smile at this sight. I loved watching David take Alina by the  hand in full responsibility of helping her. He was busy looking for the seat number, completely oblivious that the moment was magical enough for each passenger to look up and see that something special was going on between brother and sister. 

And just as much, I loved watching Alina fully trust David in this completely new experience with strange people all around and cramped quarters. She was easily going along, taking it all in as long as her brother had her hand to help her out.

My kids have logged so many miles on planes. I should try to estimate that number for each member of our family, because I think we would be surprised at the number of miles we have flown.

David was invited to inspect the cockpit of three different flights. Thank you, kind captains, for letting my button loving boy ask his questions.

 More than happy to have met Charlie the Captain and Charlie the Co-Captain.

 Lots of questions, but even more 6-year old theorizing about how everything works. David is a listener and a talker. He'll intently listen to how something works, then give his own take on it, which usually has a few imaginary ideas laced in to basic understanding of mechanics. Not much escapes him. I told him about tail winds and head winds while we were flying, and he came up with the idea that if he built a plane, it would be designed to put up the wing flaps when a tail wind came along so the plane would be pushed along faster by the wind. He's a thinker, this one! Maybe next time I'll explain aerodynamics and how that helps a plane move along faster. (Some of his misconceptions are probably from my lack of credentials to be discussing engineering principles with my boy . . . so maybe I should actually quit while I'm ahead in discussing plane designs with him.)

Funny, typical David story. This boy has some stamina when it comes to asking for the same thing over and over. I hold my ground in saying "no" in as many ways as  he asks when I find it necessary, so I don't think he asks so much because I eventually give in. For the first 45 minutes of this flight, David was asking in as many ways as he could for some kind of device to play games on. I said no. It was actually impossible, since we don't own one, and this particular flight was too small to have offered them as a service. But he kept asking, and I kept patiently explaining that we didn't have a way to make that possible. But he had set his heart on having an electronic device this time, and he didn't give up easily. The passengers around us were starting to laugh with each new way he found to ask the same questions. They commented to me on how persistent he was. I agreed. This is who we are. The passengers across the aisle from us just kept to themselves through this whole ordeal, and didn't comment or acknowledge what was going on in seats C and D of their row.

After a while, David noticed that the lady across the aisle from him had a miniPad. So he struck up a conversation. He said "Hi." Then waited a couple minutes. Then he said "This sure is a nice flight." Then he waited a couple more minutes and said, "Where are you from?" This six year old was working his way up , and eventually he interrupted her game playing to ask, "What are you playing?" She let him look over her shoulder and would occasionally explain what she was doing. I was dying inside, because I knew just where this was going. A few more minutes go by, and I notice that David is pointing out possible moves for her next turn. Another minute, and he is taking turns choosing the moves. One thing leads to the next, and David was scooted all the way over in his chair, blocking the aisle, and helping this lady play her game. Then he was the one holding her iPad while she still coached him.

And, believe it or not, for the last 15 minutes of the flight, David had completely commandeered the miniPad and he was playing her game by himself, situated back into his own seat.

The most amazing thing is the way he applies charm to make it all happen. I would ask him to please stay in his seat and leave the other passenger alone, and everyone around me was so charmed by him that they assured me there was really nothing wrong with this. The flight attendant apologized as she maneuvered the drink cart around the boy stretched across the aisle. The passenger lady kept telling me, "Oh no, he's doing so well that this fun to watch." Apparently I was the only person on the plane that could see a problem with what was happening. So eventually I sat back and let it happen, just to see how far David would get. No one else seemed to mind, so why should I? And just to reinforce this behavior, before this couple deplaned they presented David with an authentic firefighters' coin and explained just how special it was to have one. 

Sometimes Sam and I look at this negotiating power that David possesses and we refer to the parable of the camel. Have you heard about the camel that was traveling across the desert with his master when a terrible wind storm blew in? They set up camp with a small tent just big enough for the master, and the camel slept outside. After a few minutes, the camel asked "Oh, the wind is so frightful, can I just put my nostrils inside the tent so I don't get sand in my nose?" Granted. Then a couple minutes later, "Oh, my eyes are hurting from the sting of sand blowing in them. Can I put my eyes inside the tent?" Okay. It went on and on, "Now can I just squeeze my ears inside?" No problem? "my knees" "my hump" "my legs" "my tail" until finally it is the master that is outside in the wind storm while the camel sleeps peacefully inside the tent. 

This is the story of our negotiator.

I'll admit that as his mother, I have always fought this. If I draw a boundary, I want it respected--not negotiated. Inches and miles are constantly being evaluated at our house. Have we given enough so that he knows we are open to his ideas, but not too much to encourage entitlement? Have we held strong enough so he respects a "no" answer without feeling like his parents are out to defeat his every "good idea"? It causes me angst as a mother, and one of the ways that I shrug my shoulders and say, "I just don't have the answer." I don't feel like there are any good answers when I feel constantly pushed.

But watching all of this play out on the airplane this night, I realized that camels know how to have fun. And while someone might scratch their head and ask afterwards, "Now how exactly did we get from point A to point Z there?"--no one seems to really mind. Maybe my camel has enough charm that he helps everyone feel important in his journey to get what he sets his heart out to get. Maybe, just maybe, David has a combination of gifts that balance everything out and I could probably learn something from this strong character that is on this earth to teach me.

I'm off to read books about how to care for a camel.

(It will be a nice reprieve from parenting books that seem to use examples of children that eventually stop pushing.)

Coloring

 This girl loves to color. She's also a fan of taking stickers off a sheet and putting them onto her coloring pages. 

Sometimes it's a good activity for her to do this while I work with David at the table on school work. 

It's especially nice that she'll engage in this activity while we try to sit quietly in church or any other time that requires her to be on my lap for an extended period of time. I can squeak out a good 6 or 7 minutes of entertainment with this activity. And with the attention span of an 18-month old, that is light years of entertainment!

Experiment

David laid claim to a few of the Valentine's flowers he and Daddy gave me, and we tried to see if any of them would turn green with dyed water.

It didn't happen this time, but don't tell the boy. He claims that the flowers turned green all over. However, my eyes could only see tiny traces of the green water among the pink petals. We'll have to try it again with a fresh white carnation sometime, and I think this boy will be amazed at the way veins in a flower stem work. He's amazed at how everything works. 

Hats

 Oh, this girl is bursting with personality. One of her trademarks is that she loves to accessorize. She loves to have a "pretty" in her hair (although she pulls them out right after I put them in), she loves to use hair spray, she'll put any type of clothing over her head to wear around her neck, she squeals with delight at the sight of a fluffy skirt, and she has recently discovered a necklace or two the she happily wears.

Occasionally she'll find a pair of shoes to try on.

One of her funniest accessories is a hat. She finds whatever hat might be within reach and adds to her feeling of being beautiful. 

Off to conquer the world with a smile, a sippy cup and a hat--now there's a girl that will go places!

Dishes

 When David was Alina's age, we went without a dishwasher for a few months. David would happily ask as dinner finished to "Hewp Daddy dishes!" So he and Daddy spent some time at the sink washing the dishes. It's one of our favorite quotes to repeat from the days of Baby David.

Now fast forward, and we are again without a dishwasher. Since David's chore of unloading the dishwasher is on hold for the time being, he gets to wash a handful of dishes each morning. He insists on having help from his sister--and lots of splashing, laughter, and happiness ensues. Sometimes even a few clean dishes come out of their time together at the sink.

Oh, I love these kids--especially when they laugh together while they work.