weekend at the farmhouse: and the next day

It's a weekend that belongs to visiting Primrose and the weather is glorious! It would be lovely to go swimming or to visit the splash pad, but this year all water activities stopped a week before Labor Day and so we are content to fill the day with stuff that is less, well, soggy. 

We begin the morning slowly, playfully, at the farmhouse.

With breakfast in the kitchen because it is really nippy at night and in the early morning.

(Outside, the cats are wondering -- where is our breakfast? This weekend Ed is in charge of all animal care and right now, he's sleeping.)

Any grandparent will recognize that a visiting grandchild brings with her completely new and different experiences, preferences and reactions from those of a child who lives nearby and comes over all the time. I watch Primrose discover and develop favorites. They are her favorites and she incorporates her own style to each play. Is this the time to emphasize that which we all know? That no two kids are the same?

Speaking of kids, some time in the late morning we meet up with the other grandkids at a local playground. It's a large place with many structures to it, but it reminds me a little of the playground in the Luxembourg Gardens: not all stuff is going to be loved by a three year old. 

We spend a lot of time merely swinging!

(Not Sandpiper. He passes on anything not that's not stable.) 

(This photo comes from my daughter's smart phone, but I like it, so here it is!)

Lunch, outside, at Panera.

In the afternoon, Snowdrop is at the farmhouse with Primrose and me. Yes, masked when indoors, but it's such good weather that we keep doors open wide and indeed spend our share of time on the porch.

When Primrose naps, Snowdrop asks to go outside. She is on a real farmette high right now.

Everything thrills her. Apples, pears, goldenrod.

 

Snowdrop returns home, Primrose wakes. Always with books in her bed which she takes from the nearby bookshelf. Books dating back to days when her mom was a teenager. There's one about architecture, one about garden design and Steinbeck's The Pearl for good measure. 

My little visitor from Chicago is much more dependent on me to make something of the space here. She would love to take charge, show me, teach me, lead me, but she knows she can't. Not during this visit anyway. Not when she is just three and her world is in a neighborhood in Chicago which has been hers from the beginning and which she knows like the back of her little hand. And so most often, when asked, she'll turn down an offer for outside play. The familiar, the beloved art room, all that -- they are inside the farmhouse. We play inside.

She paints. And she is quite good at it!

 

This evening it's just the three of us. Primrose, Ed and me. The little girl and I make a pizza...

And yes, there is popcorn tonight and a movie (Raya and the Last Dragon). I had mentioned watching fireflies, but Primrose reminded me that she needs to sleep at night! The moon, the stars and fireflies. Saved for the next visit. They will always be here for her on those cloudless summer nights, waiting for her curious gaze and happy smile.