Monday

No more grumblings about the cold! Looking ahead, I see the coming of the first Arctic blast. The chill of today is nothing! A mere drop in the winter bucket!

Grow those winter feathers quickly, cheepers!






On Mondays, my photos are nearly always abundant and child-centered. That's no surprise: my grandkids fill my waking hours -- the challenge is in balancing the photo taking between the two. Today, there is an even split: the morning photos belong entirely to Sparrow and the afternoon -- to Snowdrop.

Both kids had a rough start to their time here: Sparrow is doing another growth spurt ("I'm hungry all the time! Feed me! Feed me!") and Snowdrop had fallen into a deep sleep at school nap time. It was tough to wake her! But both kids rallied and gave us (me, Ed, each other) their best.

Let me break it down a little.

Sparrow is with us early. So early that I keep him busy playing for a while, giving Ed a chance to sleep a little longer.






Initially, he is in a calm mood. I push it by taking out a needle and thread to move some buttons around on his overalls, while he is wearing them. He is not pleased with my maneuvers. His protests wake Ed. You could say that Sparrow did the work for me: I was really hungry for breakfast. Someone had to wake the sleeping guy upstairs!

We all sit down to breakfast. ("Hey, speak for yourself! I'm not getting any of that yummy looking oatmeal!")






(This is his "what now, grandma?" look.)






Sometime in the late morning, Sparrow naps. He has somewhat of a rough wake up. I cheer him up by showing him his own reflection in the upstairs mirror.






It's not great weather for outdoor play. I try to explain to him that a carpet of golden maple leaves is both rare and beautiful. He listens, unconvinced.






(Here's Peach, ever hopeful. She's getting her feathers back and is laying right along with the young girls. The other older ones are still molting.)






There is nothing so thrilling as coming into a warm house after spending time in the windy and somewhat wet outdoors. Add to it a hearty lunch and life becomes utterly fabulous.






And now we flip the coin and focus on the girl: it's afternoon and Snowdrop is done with school. Her brother does us a tremendous favor and bounces patiently in his bouncy chair while I read her a couple of chapters of a new book. She is such a happy girl as a result.






Ready for play!






Gaga, I want to take some paper and measure the rubber ducks!
Okay...
And I want to teach my babies to measure.
Okay...
First you have to put the ducks here, draw a line...






(Her baby I'm told is struggling. Snowdrop is patient...)






This is when Ed comes in. He'd been working on collecting water samples from the pipes in the basement. Who knew that testing your water could be so complicated!

They share a few oranges and now he is heading out again and Snowdrop wants to go with him. It's lightly raining, but hey, that would not stop either one of them.

They're gone a long time. She wants to put something in the mailbox. He wants to put away the cheepers. They then pretend to be birds in a forest...






He tells her he loves the sound of rain, she tells him it's her very favorite sound too.







It is completely dark when the kids leave. They don't mind it. Stepping out into the night as colorful lights twinkle along the path before you can be somewhat magical, to a little girl, to a baby too.


At the farmhouse, I scramble some farmette eggs (we have so many!), steam up some veggies and toss a salad. I finish up a bubbly wine we'd opened yesterday. Ed and I settle in for a very peaceful evening on the couch.