to Chicago

Call this a quick break in routines: I'm off to Chicago, to be with the two little girls while their parents attend something or other this evening.

So of course I'm up early. Misty morning, pretty skies, but cold! 

Our CSA farmers wrote that they are expecting frost (which would put an end to the tomato season and, too, would take out the flowers from the remaining farmers markets). We didn't quite get that low at the farmette, but we hovered nearby! 

For now, our annuals are still with us... 

... and I even caught a day lily trying hard to appear lovely and summer-like!

The phone woke Ed and so I got to have him at the kitchen table, even at this ungodly (for him) hour. 

To make his point about keeping ideas about safety in perspective, he reminded me again that the most dangerous thing we do in our days is drive cars. And so he tells me -- let's fill out our absentee ballots before you hit the road. 

You'll mail mine even if I crash, wont you?

No! we'll mail them before there's a chance of that!

We take voting integrity seriously alright! We do everything by the book,  avoiding even the appearance of impropriety! 

Ed! Sign legibly!

But I never sign anything legibly. It has to be close to my regular signature.

Okay....

I'm off.

My goal is to be in Chicago in time for lunch with my daughter. Traffic is light, the music in the car is good, I make it in time to sit down with her at noon!

And in the late afternoon, we pick up Primrose. I am, of course, a picker-upper in Madison, but this pickup is so different: Primrose is attending a big city school, close to downtown Chicago and, too, it covers all grades, so I see her coming out as high schoolers mingle at the entry way. Primrose took no time to get used to this. She doesn't give it a second's thought.

At home now. 

Parents go out, she and I do art together. And then it's time for the two of us to pick up her sister. We do a small detour to Olivia's (a neighborhood grocery store). I should remember not to take a hungry child into a grocery store. ("Can we get jelly beans? Please! I never had any! How about Pirate Booty? Please!) 

We come into Juniper's school and it is like a reunion, in that many of the teachers remember Primrose from her early years there. Juniper herself is somewhat puzzled to see me. I don't know that she has been picked up by anyone aside from her parents before. Still, she gives a tentative smile of recognition...

And is further reassured to see Primrose with me.

At home, she reminds me that things have changed since my last visit back in August. She moves around now. On her own. Oh-oh....

Primrose is super protective, positioning herself at the the stairs so that Juniper doesn't go in that direction.  Yeah, we have a roving toddler on our hands! Best to get her in her high chair. Dinner is a great distraction.

Tortellini and broccoli for the youngest among us.

Thai buns for her big sister.

And for dessert? More broccoli for Juniper, who doesn't know that this does not really qualify as dessert at anyone's dinner table.

The rest of us opt for more traditional post dinner treats.

It is abundantly clear that Juniper is now ready for bed. While I go through those routines with her, I park Primrose in front of her current favorite movie (Robin Hood). This is perhaps not a great plan for a school night, but Juniper does require some quiet one on one time. Juniper is content, Primrose is content and thus grandma is content.

I do finally get the big girl to bed and as I sit back and think about the day I have to smile: Juniper is now 4.5 and her sister, the youngest of all my grandchildren, is rapidly approaching her first birthday. Such a beautiful age for both! Sweetly loving, oblivious still to newspaper headlines, to the grumpiness of others, ready to engage, to hug, to return that smile.

With so much love...