moving the girl in, and more

The directions were:  Leave all your crap on the curb. Go park your vehicle, and then come back and carry stuff up to the room. They had volunteer College Welcome kids there to help, but Maria packed light. We could do it ourselves.

It was a gorgeous morning, sunny and bright, not too hot yet.

 Little Jay laughed at her because her checkered sheets had coordinates on them. "You can graph parabolas all night, Maria."

She said she looked at the package and didn't notice numbers, just the checkered print.

Well, yeah. You got more than you asked for.

 Here we are on our way back from grocery shopping.   We're not leaving a kid off in a random place with no plan for food.  When we were in the aisle with the Easy Mac, I told her to just pick out some instant meals. They don't go bad. If you never need them, bring them home and the kids will eat them. But then if you do need them, there they are.

We also ended up with a random HUGE container of tic tacs.  I thought she bought it. She thought I did.

??

Nope, neither of us.  Enjoy those, M.

Then these guys came for the afternoon.  Even though bugs fly in and air conditioning flies out, we prop the door open for guys like him.

 It's a gorgeous summer day, and this is so annoying.

Put all that shit away and GET OUTSIDE.  You can do that ALL WINTER.

What? Us? Who?

We have to save these boards.

John was overheard snapping, "Don't talk to me about any apps. GET OUTSIDE."

So then we went up to the park, and while we adults were still up there sweating, Tim, Julia, and t.c. headed back for the house.

Where they were again found on the damned games.

Can we hurt them?

I suppose not.

It's after midnight, so officially September now.

September!

How is that possible?

love you all so, and behave, Maria.   love, MOM aka GRANDMA

kooky and cranky

It was that kind of night.  Dan called late in the afternoon about coming by, and yeah, we're all for it.  I made a pasta salad and Heidi brought food, and I made sandwiches and it was lovely.

The kids were dying to get down to this basement under the family room to attack the Legos and Barbies.

We tagged along to supervise.   It's like 100 degrees out, far too hot to really enjoy being outside at all.

 In this little disaster of a room, I decided to replace all the missing lightbulbs so we could see better, but then I tripped over the crap on the floor and FELL and skinned my knee.  

Last year at one point I had a skinned knee and a ZIT.  How undignified.  As a Grandmother, I object.

 Moo Jrs--always the answer.  At one point b.g.'s little brother became unhinged because his M&M cookie broke.  Well, hell, that's not a problem. We'll take the pieces--we gladly eat broken cookies--and he can have a new one.

this superhero does not eat broken cookies

That one broke too.  First it chipped a little on the side and he was upset.  In his fury he busted the rest of it, and threw his cute self down, sobbing.   Kirsten's dog took care of the crumbs.

Whee.  Unreasonable Toddler Time.

 Eventually we made it back outside again.  Here Dan and Kirsten are dusting the boy off after he fell off the swing.

There was giddy laughter and loud crying.  In psych they call it "emotionally labile."  That means mood all over the place, cannot get it together, laughing and crying in the same minute.

That was them tonight.

That's all right.   In the middle of all this, t.c. was on the phone wanting the lock box code for their house. I had to go online and look it up.

But now it's now, almost the end of this day, and it was a great day, and tomorrow is looking fine--it's Friday after all, best day of the week.  I have my to-do list here and we are ready.

Onward.   love you all so, MOM

happy birthday, beautiful girl

Here you are over the weekend, playing lifeguard.

This from 2002, you wrangling my wild baby, Lydia.

This is the story of Heidi's name:  Before she was born, we picked out a pretty girl's name--Jennifer Michelle.  It was a perfect, pretty baby girl name.   And then she was born and didn't look at all like any stock photo of a baby girl--she looked like family, like a close personal relative.

(Imagine that.)

As I took in that face, I asked Jay if he minded if we named her Heidi instead?

He said sure.

Here you are, Heidi, another cute one from the weekend, that wet baby in your arms.

Thank you for everything you bring to my life, Dad's life, to this family--your patience and sense of humor, for sharing p.j. with all of us the way you do.  You are generous and considerate, and tend to say, "Awww," in the right places, tell me not to worry.

Being girls together with you and Kirby caught me by surprise--it was fun then, and it's still fun now.

We are all lucky your ours.

Probably none of us would even be who we are without you.

Obviously you have made the whole family better.   love forever, MOM and DAD and everybody

dan's 33

Yes, he is.

And we had a great weekend at the lake, a fine day today, all of us together, having fun.

Here are some pictures from the past.  When you've known someone thirty-three years, there is history you cannot escape, not that I'd even want to.

This is from thirty years ago.  Smurf sweats.  Grumpy look because we've prodded you to sit down for a picture before we hit the playground equipment.

 Here's college graduation at Northrup Auditorium.  In the morning we attended Alicia's graduation, and drove back for this one in the evening.  This was such a fine day I can remember many details about it, including what Tim was wearing that morning in Winona, and how Heidi and I took turns bouncing Tim in the pouch until finally he fell asleep on Heidi, high up in the balcony.

I remember my mother turning to grin at me when your names were announced and you walked across the stage for those diplomas.   They had the graduates arranged alphabetically, so it's one of the few times your name was announced before John's--not that it mattered, just caught me off guard. 

 Here are two brother teasing Maria after work.   That little peanut is leaving for college next week.

 Here you guys are just a short time ago when you were a family of three.

And this picture, January 1983.

Daniel?  Thank you for all the happiness you've brought us.

I've told you this before, I know.

There are a lot of people I love, but not a single one more than you.

Thank you for being mine, for being ours.  This whole family is who it is because you are in it.

Happy Birthday, Son.   love forever, Mom and Dan and Everybody.

sunday

 This morning we stepped outside and it felt like we were in Punta Cana again, it was so humid and hot.

We have air conditioning in the cabin, which doesn't get used very much. Wisconsin is not usually that hot, but today it was.

Here's most everybody at the sand bar.

This one stayed back and enjoyed her own peace.

They wanted tubing, which is fine, but it goes on and on. They're never ready to quit.

We had a picnic lunch at the beach.  It gets tiresome dragging the kids back and forth and it was way too hot in the backyard, so we brought the food there instead.  It was good--nice.  Heidi dragged over a cooler with water and juice and pop.

Dan took these two for a ride.

Here they are, back again, safe and sound.

Daredevil.

Here, at the end of the day, the overheated GRANDPA took a turn.  Usually he'd rather water ski, but at the moment he's taking care of his back.  

And that's the end of that.  It was a lovely weekend, made possible by the patience of everyone involved.  The pictures don't capture the sheer INTENSITY or miscommunications or misunderstandings, or straight up FIGHTS that occur.  They don't include the screech of an adorable one year old baby--and I do mean screech.   Dannell was literally holding her ears, alternating with covering her eyes at one point.

Plus he throws everything.  Everything.  Overhand as far as he can.  Food. Rocks. Clunky toys that could hurt someone.  The TV remote. His mother's phone.

What happened to that tender little newborn of a summer ago?    I've teased his parents that he's turned into a varmint, a mammal.  They roll their eyes and rub their temples.

We reminisced about how Heidi used to holler at p.j., "Stop making that NOISE!"    Oh, yeah.

People all the time say teenagers are difficult.  I do not agree. I think the hardest time of a child's entire life are from 9-18 months--agile, mobile, non-verbal, no sense at all, moody, getting teeth, unpredictable sleep.

Pssht. Teenagers sleep like rocks for twelve or fourteen hours at a time.  They make no horrible noises--in fact it's hard to get a conversation out of them most of the time.   They're helpful if you ask them, and confine most of their messes to their own room.    It's pretty deluxe.

Okay, onward.   This summer is swiftly coming to an end.  Happy Birthday, Guys!  love, Mom and Dad