Sometimes I think that the high point for Snowdrop's farmhouse sleepovers is the morning meal that greets her when she wakes up. Or, more correctly -- the morning meals, because she always eats two breakfasts. The first comes soon after she is up: it's a simple meal of a cereal that she associates completely with the farmhouse -- corn flakes. This and a cup of milk are enough to keep her going for a while.
And it buys me time: typically Ed is still sleeping and I need to fix breakfast number two, which has the fruits, the pancakes, the bacon. No sleepover is complete without them.
Once Ed is up, we're set to go.
Today, I acknowledge the sudden onset of winter weather.
What, they don't look like snowmen to you? Well, Snowdrop thinks otherwise!
This second breakfast is a highlight for her. The food, yes there is that. But it's also the easy dynamic that comes from having one grandma and two children at the table.
(The bigger child is always happy to pour more maple syrup or honey on her plate.)
There is play time too on these sleepover Sundays, but I needn't highlight that here, since it follows the patterns of any other visit: lots of reading, book making, playing with babies or characters, playing with anything and everything that is in her little room to the front of the house.
(The morning is also a time to feed the farm animals. Here they all are, parading over to the farmhouse to remind us of their own breakfast requirements.)
Eventually I take Snowdrop home. (It's just at the freezing point as we approach noon -- the time of this photo -- but she insists that she is not cold, shaking off the proffered jacket.)
The middle hours of my day are organizational: I have been away from the farmette and from chores around the house for a number of days and I need to catch up. Ed works outside, coming in only to point to additional pockets of disorder that need my attention. He gets a light scolding for it. Hints on how to straighten up stuff should be delivered gently from a person who himself tends toward being messy!
And in the evening the young family comes to dinner!
(Snowdrop is showing me how she is teaching her brother to walk...)
(Sparrow watches his sister with that look of reverence that little ones bestow on their older sibs at this young age...)
Dinner. No one is super hungry, for any number of reasons. It's the perfect meal for us -- a seafood salad, with leftovers that can be rerun tomorrow...
And now we are back on schedule. The week ahead should proceed as normal. Will it? I can't be sure. With little ones, you just never know.
And it buys me time: typically Ed is still sleeping and I need to fix breakfast number two, which has the fruits, the pancakes, the bacon. No sleepover is complete without them.
Once Ed is up, we're set to go.
Today, I acknowledge the sudden onset of winter weather.
What, they don't look like snowmen to you? Well, Snowdrop thinks otherwise!
This second breakfast is a highlight for her. The food, yes there is that. But it's also the easy dynamic that comes from having one grandma and two children at the table.
(The bigger child is always happy to pour more maple syrup or honey on her plate.)
There is play time too on these sleepover Sundays, but I needn't highlight that here, since it follows the patterns of any other visit: lots of reading, book making, playing with babies or characters, playing with anything and everything that is in her little room to the front of the house.
(The morning is also a time to feed the farm animals. Here they all are, parading over to the farmhouse to remind us of their own breakfast requirements.)
Eventually I take Snowdrop home. (It's just at the freezing point as we approach noon -- the time of this photo -- but she insists that she is not cold, shaking off the proffered jacket.)
The middle hours of my day are organizational: I have been away from the farmette and from chores around the house for a number of days and I need to catch up. Ed works outside, coming in only to point to additional pockets of disorder that need my attention. He gets a light scolding for it. Hints on how to straighten up stuff should be delivered gently from a person who himself tends toward being messy!
And in the evening the young family comes to dinner!
(Snowdrop is showing me how she is teaching her brother to walk...)
(Sparrow watches his sister with that look of reverence that little ones bestow on their older sibs at this young age...)
Dinner. No one is super hungry, for any number of reasons. It's the perfect meal for us -- a seafood salad, with leftovers that can be rerun tomorrow...
And now we are back on schedule. The week ahead should proceed as normal. Will it? I can't be sure. With little ones, you just never know.
