a february friday night

 This guy and his brother came to be watched while the parents went out for dinner.

It was good.

 That little dog in the middle has been here all week while her mother was in Florida living it up in the sun, hanging out with her grandparents.

Okay, I included this pictures as evidence.   Do you see Lydia, aka Kari, WALKING on the furniture to get around her brothers?

Okay.

You've seen it too.  Sigh.

 Here they are playing chess with Little Jay's old  Simpson's chess set.   He was a huge Simpson's fan from the time he was a little small boy.

I have wondered this very much---Simpson's is somewhat bad, right?  Smart-alecky, innuendos, all that.  And yet the most civilized child I ever raised was crazy for them.  We thought maybe he got it all out vicariously through Bart.

And then Twitter happened, and his raunchy tweets, his wicked sense of humor?

Actually, I was glad to know he lets it out somewhere.

Okay, and I asked Tim  how he learned to play chess?  He said, "I always knew how."

No, not possible.  I myself do not know how, so we can be pretty sure I didn't teach him.  So who did?  Julia also knows how to play chess.  This is not some lesson they absorb in the womb from a non-chess-playing mother.

Weird.

Here are the nephew babies in Tim's room, a place they love to go and raise heck.

Here's that Knex roller coaster they love.

That little brown dog was so tired, and so happy to go home with her mother tonight.  Okay, this is also an odd story.  Payton brought along a big bag of rawhides. 

That's fine.

Well, this evening, she dug through the bag and brought one to Sam, and another to Sidney, and then she took one herself out to the family room to chew.  SHE PASSED OUT RAWHIDES.

????

Speechless.

This guy asked to go to Grandpa's office, so we did.  He has several model cars down there--souvenir metal ones.  We brought them down and he opened and closed the doors, looked at the little fake motor under the hood.  Then he turned to me and said, "I would like ice cream."

Moo Jr.s

We have those.  Oh my goodness, yes.

And that's the end of that, of a fine Friday night spent hanging around with cute babies and other kids I like.  Maria came home from that pizza place with dark circles under her eyes and a fond wish for a long bath.

Apparently Friday nights and Sunday nights are their peak pizza times.  And customers aren't afraid to be rude.

Little Jay has been working retail too, and I'm fairly astonished by how mean people can be.

Okay, answer this truly:   Would you be mean to my kid over a dollar?  Over a sold-out brand of dishsoap?

I used to hear these embarrassing, absurd customer stories when the kids worked at the nursery and garden center too.

People will be mean to another lady's kid over fifty cents.  Over a dollar.

Every retail worker is some other lady's kid.  Hello.

Okay, good night.  And be kind to your pizza people, and the guys who load your sod, and the one who points you to where the bathroom is.

love always, Val

also found in that folder

 This:

"Since Christmas my family has been nothing but sick, and so has our grandson, t.c.  Our son and his wife tried to take a vacation to the Padre Islands and visit her retired grandparents, but with a relentlessly pooping toddler, it had it's moments. Poor t.c.

But everyone is healthy again now and he's been at my house this week, the adorable wee beast.

I had Mr. t.c. ysterday , had to take him with us to the orthodontist.  The orthodontist has a little video arcade in the corner of the waiting room, big baskets of beanie babies, cards, books, crayons and paper. Was t.c. interested in the toys?  No.  He wanted to mess with the wastebasket. "Garbage, garbage," he muttered, slamming the cupboard door over and over.  Grrr.

Eventually he got sick of the place and yelled, Gramma! I wanna go!" and, "Where's my dad?" over and over, while smudging the glass doors with saliva and chubby hands.  I told him we had to wait for Little Jay, getting his teeth worked on.

Then he talked about that for a while, "Jay teeeef," showing me his own teeth.

 I helped him play the 4 wheeler video game for as long as I could stand there with 30 pounds on my left hip.  He liked watching the 4 wheelers, but I do NOT play video games and I was terrible at it, running into trees, flying off the 4 wheeler.


Oh, then he spotted the little fridge with the bottled water, "I'm thirsty!"  Of course you are.  H wanted to commandeer the bottle, and I really didn't want t.c. in charge of 16 ounces of water on an upholstered sofa.  He put it over where I couldn't reach it on the other side, putting the cap on and off, glancing at me warily in case I might try to reach for it. What a work out.

 And Aunt Julia is three years old and she gets so jealous of him, which adds another dimension to the day--today we didn't have to go anywhere and he and Julia played their little hearts out for hours, jumping off benches into the ball crawl, asking for popsicles, watching Curious George videos.

Life is good here, and though nobody sleeps in the little crib these days, it's still in the corner of our bedroom, flowered sheets and puffy print blankets, waiting for whoever might want to snooze there next.   Kiss your babies, kiss your kids, kiss each other.  Blessings to us all in the New Year."

Yeah, things change and yet they do not.    Beautiful quiet February, always much the same.   love, Val

february, 1999

James, 1999

I ran across this in a folder, something written in 1999:

"I am pleased to say that we are down to the last six weeks of winter here.

One Valentine's Day many years ago I bought a crocus for myself and one for my neighbor who was also at home with tiny children.   We promised together that when those crocuses were done, withered and gone, SPRING would be there.  The crocuses were a ray of hope on a snowy windowsill, and spring followed on schedule.

These days I am not housebound with babies.  I actually spend a lot of time in the car driving kids around, and I love the periwinkle light of February at dusk, a winter landscape, and cold that turns the world into colors I don't expect.   But at home I'm tired of ice skates tied together, hanging from all the doorknobs, mittens lined up on top of the radiators, and boots with their toes sticking underneath lined up along the bottom.   Spring will be here soon.

The baby guinea pig we bought last fall is big and noisy now, and our own baby James, nearly two, was baptized yesterday followed by a family feast and celebration.  Our oldest child has survived his first semester at the university quite nicely.  We all made it through those first lonely weeks:  John, parents, little brothers and sisters.  "Where's John?" they'd ask at supper.  Jay who is six would explain it to them, "Don't you know? He's at college."  This last year of the century promises to be a happy one."

John, 1999

We don't have any guinea pigs now, and we like it that way.  They were great:  Nibbles, Rusty, Marty, Felicia, Amy Karen, and  Patrick.    But no more pigs to clean up after.  The turtle and the dogs are enough.

And they don't ice skate anymore. The warming house burned down, so even though there is a rink up there, we never seem to go.    One winter break Dannell had a concussion hitting her head on the ice playing boot hockey.   Helmets probably would be a good idea.

But we did have this going on the other day, kind of a blast from the 90s:

  
p.j. did this, no idea why.   I think we can live without the Emperor's New Groove.   But the kids were laughing because TIM also used to wreck VCR tapes, only he did it with his teeth--he bit them!  He also leaves a trail of socks through the house, just like she does.   The kids speculated that the two of them might be related.

Onward.  It is a fine Wednesday, and almost time to make lunch.     love, Val

a pretty nice weekend

 Dan and Alicia's guys came to spend Saturday morning with us.  

 It was nice, very easy going.

And then this guy got tired and droopy, so I put him in the pouch and walked the swoopy baby-nap walk until he was asleep.  He had on that goofy winter hat--he modeled all the hats actually.   Most kids snatch them right off their heads, but he did not. 

He had on a pink argyle one for a while, and another one with a big blue flower.  Besides this little Nordic hat, he also was wearing a Halloween necklace, all purple bats.

And then in the evening, we went to a party at our friends' house.  He's retiring after many years of running a complicated business at the same time being very nice to people.

He's Lutheran clergy, and as such, you can't go shooting off your mouth, and the church can't go broke, and it's not as easy as it may look on Sunday morning.

Anyway, at the end of the evening I found him to say good-bye and hugged him tight.  The family room of his house was full of rowdy friends smoking cigars and laughing late in the evening.  I said, "You have so many good friends.  You are a lucky man."  He nodded deeply in agreement.  

Upstairs his cute wife was receiving complaints about the stench of the cigars.  I loved her response:  "It's his house and his party.  Let them enjoy. We can air out the house tomorrow."

Oh, Jody.

Yes, exactly.

And then today--Julia made a special necklace for her prayer partner as a Christmas gift, and finally they were both in church at the same time and she could give her the necklace she'd made--little wooden beads spelling out her name.

Julia sought her out  three pews ahead during the point in the service where we all share the peace.  It's just shaking hands with those seated nearby and saying, "Peace be with you."  (Tim yanks on my arm. Some people need more peace than other, apparently.)    Julia always runs to where her prayer partner is and hugs her during share the peace.

Julia gave her the package and then grabbed her around the neck in a tight hug, and this woman was obviously caught off guard, but pleased and returned the hug with a big smile on her face.

Then Jule came running back, and I'm glad for this lady that she has such a friendly prayer partner--not someone stand-offish and hard to know, and I'm glad for Julia that the lady appreciates her.

I kind of think they're made for each other.

And that is the end of that. It's no longer Sunday.  The world has turned a bit more, so now it's Monday.

Snow is softly falling in a beautiful pink world outside my window, night bright as day, sounds amplified like in a boat at the lake.

How does that happen when it snows?

Good night.  love, Val

p.j. in charge

 Starting at the very beginning of the day, she wouldn't let her mom change her diaper.   Apparently the child planned to take care of it herself later because I found her in the family room, soggy overnight diaper tossed to the side and she was trying to get a new diaper fastened.    She had the right idea, just couldn't get the tapes unfolded.

Okay, Grandma can help you.   Then she didn't want her leggings or socks back on, and I'm sure not going fight about that.   But in a little while she appeared with the leggings on and the socks on upside down.

Nice work!

Later we knew when she was ready for lunch and even what she wanted to eat because she brought us a sauce pan from the cupboard and a box of mac and cheese from the pantry.

Sounds good.

Then after lunch her aunties thought she should get dressed, and they're right.  That's a good time to get out of pajamas.   Well, she didn't want their help, and I could hear the girls chasing her to where I was sprawled on my bed watching House Hunters.   The baby was irritably yelling back at them, "No!  No!"   She ran in the room wearing only a onesie with the snaps flapping AND a pair of Dora garden gloves.

Okay, that made me laugh.  I helped, and we did get on clothes, but the gloves fell off along the way and when Grandpa handed them to her, she just slapped them out of his hand.

Well.  Nevermind.

She also pushed a kitchen chair over to the washing machine,  threw her snow pants in and put soap on top.  It's fine.  We do laundry constantly, just added some more and who knew the snow pants were even dirty?

And so this very, very cold  Thursday was spent doing absolutely nothing except goofing around and being entertained by a sassy little squirrel of a girl.

It was lovely.   Onward--tomorrow is Friday, which is always a great day.      love, Val

(i love this picture, alicia.  the beautiful room, sweet walter's bald head, her parents, the light in the windows, her serious perfect lips.  gorgeous.)

silly little plant

And hard to get a good picture of it!  

It's cold here today, maybe about ten degrees with a sharp wind.  My bare hands were burning while I carried in the groceries late tonight, and the storm door glass was all frosted.

But this little plant I bought at the grocery store is liking life quite well.

When I bought it, it had no blossoms, but within a couple hours, they were peeking out.  Now tonight a couple are fully open and turning their sweet, yellow faces to the lamp--I suppose because it's warmth.

Oh yeah.  February approaches, and that's a very good thing.  love always, Val

fifty-three

It was a beautiful night, snow falling-- looked like a Christmas card.

Here he is, our January guy.

Dog passing through--

The girls baked these special cupcakes for Saturday night--Reese's peanut butter cups were involved.

They did good.

These two on Sunday afternoon:

My parents were here.  John and Dannell could not be because they have some sick kids.  RSV?  Something like that.  It's not good, especially for the tiny guy, but he's feeling better with a nebulizer and antibiotics.

a picture dannell sent us

As a parent, it's hard to know what we get right.  It's confusing.   But Jay, this I do know:  You don't criticize, and you don't nitpick.

Sometimes you get annoyed there's bitching and even yelling,  "Do any kids in this house EVER GO TO BED??!"   But that's different.  That's situational, not personal. 

 I know for a fact that every one of these people including me, have benefited from that feeling of however we are is quite good enough.  You don't tell us how to be or what to think, just believe we're all in this together.

Here we all are Sweetheart, this whole family who loves you.  Thanks for everything you do for us every day, for your generosity and good cooking, for being able to laugh at yourself, so that we don't forget we need to laugh at our own selves sometimes too.

Thank you for all the ways we count on you--if it's a job that's difficult to impossible, messy, miserable, involves some kind of ridiculous weather challenge?

You'll be there, leading the way.

Happy Birthday, Buddy.   This whole family is nothing but lucky having you.    love, Val and everybody