Wednesday

Morning cold. Frost on the window, furnace working for longer spells now, as if it were February instead of mid November.






But once again the sun is out and though the ground is getting that crunchy firm feel to it, I don't really mind. The farmette is bright and beautiful. Even now, in a month that typically doesn't really present itself well.

Sparrow comes for a morning of play here. He is bundled of course and it strikes me that it would be fitting to sit him down next to a polar bear.







Okay okay okay, not for long. It's pleasantly warm in the farmhouse.

Oops! Without that jacket to stiffen him up, he loses his balance a bit...






Now here are strong arms to keep him upright! Breakfast. In the front room.






It stays cold in the morning and it stays cold in the afternoon when I pick up Snowdrop. The little girl initially doesn't notice, doesn't care. She made a kite. She wants to see it soar in some form of a mini flight.






At the farmette, she runs like the dickens down the path to the barn. The cheepers are convinced she's there to get them food. They fly to be first in line.






This is when she gets cold. Me, I had beat her to it a long time ago.

We retreat to the farmhouse.

("Playing" Jingle Bells...)






It's storybook ballet day and hard as it is to get her to stop her game, dance class pulls her like a magnet. We arrive only 45 seconds late!






Today's story is about Thanksgiving. The kids are good Pilgrims who discover a new settlement in America, sow seeds on it and have themselves a first feast. True, much is left out in the retelling of it and what she hears, does leave Snowdrop puzzled (I see her hand shoot up to inquire about how it is that they discovered a new colony in America), but in the end she is one happy little Pilgrim, with a tutu underneath her starched white apron.


 








Evening. I cook up a pot of soup that Ed and I will dip into for the next few days. The cheepers sleep, the lights on the porch look twice as bright on this crisp cold night. Winter came early this year. That's okay: so long as it leaves early too and has plenty of sunshine sprinkled throughout.

Tuesday

I believe the high today was 26F (-3.5C). We have a cold blast that refuses to go away.

On the upside -- oh that winter sunshine! It makes Arctic air feel (almost) pleasant!






It's been a while since Ed and I have had a breakfast together, just the two of us. I mean, silly on the one hand, but still, it is so calm and cool to start the day this way again...






I work inside this morning. A free handful of hours allowed me to catch up. Bookkeeping, holiday planning, more bookkeeping after all that holiday planning -- so much to do!

And then there was the ever clever little girl -- coming to the farmhouse for her after-school time here. (She is so happy to see a new book on the table next to the couch.)






Her stories today float around the holidays. Santa Clause figures heavily in them, which is quite funny since Mr. Claus has been only marginally noted in her family's holiday lexicon. She is determined to meet him on Christmas Eve night. While her parents are sleeping.






She jumps into her other favorite games too. Office, for example. I'm being told to not come in. She is working.






And then it's time for me to take her home. Run, Snowdrop! It's so cold!






I dont have good music for her in the car, but we make up for it by having good conversation.
Gaga  -- she asks -- is this car a manual transmission?
I nearly stop solid on the freeway. Say what?
Is it manual transmission?
Well yes, it is... you see, I learned to drive in Poland, where all cars have manual transmission. You know what that means? I have to use my hand to adjust the motor when I go fast or when I slow down. I mean, how else do you talk about manual transmission to a three year old. But she is one step ahead: like when you switch to third gear, right?

Oh my....


Snowdrop's mom and I try to set aside an hour each week to talk, without child, without distraction. The place we go to is celebrating its one year anniversary:  free champagne! It's here that we give ourselves the time to meander and think. To consider all that is before us.






It's an hour that is always very well spent.

Tomorrow, they say we will cross back to the above freezing range. Suddenly, 40F (4.5C) will seem very very warm again!

Monday

Since election day (last Tuesday), I have basically shut out the world that exists beyond my grandkids. A confluence of factors and forces set my days spinning, pretty much round the clock, around the well being of my awesome threesome. The intensity of the days left me whirling like a pinwheel in gale strength winds, but as you know, intensities make you stronger and they give you an appreciation, though with a touch of sadness, for the moment when things slow down and you return to your normal patterns once more. I'd say tonight, I'm back to normal. Ed and I are on the couch eating popcorn and watching season six of VEEP.

Earlier, so much earlier, Sparrow arrived for his Monday at the farmhouse. Ed was a saint to come down for breakfast with the two of us. Well, Sparrow only pretended to eat. (I must say, I felt a tad guilty as his curious eyes followed every spoonful of oatmeal from bowl to my mouth.)







Sparrow is at an age where you also look for the beginnings of independent play. Being at his side, flashing toys, books, singing songs, squeezing stuffies -- all that's well and good, but your intuition tells you that equally important are those moments when you are not responsible for the child's amusement: when he finds them for himself.

And so I bring up the bounce-a-roo. For Snowdrop this not too attractive to the adult eye spring-loaded contraption was an introduction into a world of being upright and in control of her own play. She could bounce in it for a good long while. As she came closer to being a one year old, she learned to walk and move around freely by herself. But in the bounce-a-roo, she was safe and she'd use the strength of her little chubby legs to jump up a storm.

Sparrow is old enough now to begin exploring that same independence.






Perhaps the biggest challenge for him and therefore for his caregiver is the nap. His schedule necessarily has to be erratic and he has never quite mastered the daytime sleep routine. Sometimes he is easy to put down. Today he is not. He wins one round, I win the next, and so it continues until finally I release him from this purgatory and he sits back in his bouncy seat with a very victorious look on his face.






He is a cheerful little guy, but there is a downside: Without a nap, he alternates between being happy and being tired. Let's focus on the happy!






In the afternoon, we pick up Snowdrop. Her little brother can be a real status symbol for her in school. Friends love to come up and share in his wonderfulness. Sparrow laps it all up. He doesn't mind for once being the center of attention.






(Snowdrop has a new scarf. The colors leap out at you on this cold and gray day.)






Once inside, Snowdrop is a whirlwind of ideas and play proposals.





Ed looks up and says -- you seem to have a lot of energy...
I got energy up to my brain! -- she retorts.
How do you get it up to your brain?
Blood carries it there!

He puts down his computer. This needs further discussion. Snowdrop, do you know that the foods you eat give you your energy?
Yes! I ate some oreos for lunch. And now I am full of energy.
(We both stifle a chuckle.)

Book writing: it's part of her everyday now.






(Assessing her work...)






(Yes, it's ready!)






Evening now. Kids are gone, Ed and I are are in  our quiet bubble  (just before watching VeeP). I listen to a short video that somehow made its way to the front page of the NYTimes. It's narrated by a woman who immigrated here from the Soviet Union as a child. Wanting to fit in, she lived her childhood to please others (it didn't work). Eventually she had kids -- daughters actually -- and she tells how determined she is to have them be more than just girls who live to please others. Strong girls, who believe in the power of their own voice.

I am charmed by her story, but  also a tad amused by the simplicity of the formula. Here's a mom who is putting a lot of pressure on herself to turn each girl into someone who does not have to please others in life to feel happy and successful. The beauty (or the sadness, depending on your personality) of being a grandparent is that you know, you truly know that trying too hard to get your daughter to be this way or that way is not necessarily a good thing, for you, or for your child. So what are you left with? Perhaps one approach would be to maintain a happy family life as best you can, remain open to the world beyond your own backyard, and hope for a hell of a lot of luck going forward.

And still, when I watch Snowdrop prance around the farmhouse, I am again filled with that hope that what we do here with her, with all our grandkids, will help them be strong as they grow up. And maybe we can and maybe we can't, but still, watching their young and very innocent faces, you sure hope we can.


'

Sunday eating

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.

flipping once again

On the good road to recovery, Primrose asserted herself one more time (and one can only hope one last time) this night, protesting the unfairness of it all several times. By morning, she appeared to be as she was just before I came -- pretty darn fine!

The little one slept in her bumblebee pj's -- a leftover from a Halloween parade at her school -- and my last morning with my sweet grandgirl is spent playing with her dressed this way.

Play ball!

"How do you do that?"






"There, I picked it up!"






"An over the shoulder pitch? I can do it!"






"Or maybe I'll just put it down..."






Oh, Primrose, you are the cutest little bumblebee! It's so good to see your peppy side again. Here comes the flight of the bumblebees!






She really wants to participate in breakfast. Oatmeal is oatmeal, no?






Not this time... I leave her in the good good hands of her mom. Good bye, snugly little one!






I have a bus to catch.

Retrace my steps on this brilliant but very very cold day. It's way below freezing -- more than a dozen degrees below normal for this time of year.






Still, the sky is bright and yes, the city is taking on that winter look. Note the lampposts!






And a handful of hours later, I flip everything around once again. I am in Madison, picking up groceries for the week and getting the farmhouse ready for a special guest tonight -- Snowdrop has finally gotten her wish for a sleepover! Her excitement is so sweet - it's as if a farmette visit is somehow extraordinary! And perhaps it is, late at night...






She arrives with a suitcase of stuff packed for the occasion. After putting away the chickens with Ed, she shows me all that she could fit in. A globe?!?






Of course, she plays with none of it. Too much to do! To talk about! To explain!






 To write.






As always on sleepover nights, we have a pizza party.






I'm forever pushing vegetables. And today (mind you, tomorrow may be different!), I'd say asparagus ranks right up there with a pizza slice.






It is not easy to get her interested in bedtime. Just one Olivia video! Just one more game! Just two more chapters! Sound familiar?

But, she reminds me that tonight is different. Unusual. And she is correct. Our weeks have become so darn busy that we don't set aside weekend nights for these sleepovers nearly often enough.

Okay, Snowdrop: just two five three six four more minutes!
It's a special night, Gaga!





Indeed it is, little one. Indeed it is.