mini Thanksgiving weekend

My younger daughter and her family are heading out to Minneapolis for Thanksgiving and so we wont be seeing them this coming Thursday. But what's in a date? Today they're coming up to Madison and stopping here for the night. Call it then a mini Thanksgiving, or a pre-Thanksgiving for us all! (We'll do the real deal in a smaller configuration.)

And look at what we have outside!





It's not deep, but nor is it a fleeting event. We continue to have temperatures that are well below normal.

Breakfast in the front room. No sun today, but we brighten up the place with flowers.






(And I brightened up the pic's exposure a tad to show off how pretty the cheepers are against a cover of white stuff. Not that they like it! Here, Java is leading the two young girls to the garage. I don't think they'd ever touched snow before!)





I spend the morning housecleaning and baking. The place is filled now with the smell of apples and cinnamon.





And then I hurry to meet the younger family at my mom's place.

(Primrose and her great grandmother)


 



From there, it's a hop and a skip to my older girl's home. Welcome, little Primrose! Your cousins, aunt and uncle are sure happy to have you here! (As for grandma? Oh, don't even ask!)






(The three cousins)






A band is formed. Everyone has an instrument to play!






And soon enough it is evening. We eat dinner at the ever informal ever tasty Longtable. Primrose is delighted by the lights, the TV screens, the noise and clamor of our family enjoying our night out together.






Sparrow is equally enthralled.






Happy, happy times around a table. All of us. Feeling grateful to the core.






Late. It's late now. Babies need to be fed (so many willing hands!)...






One last dance needs to be performed, to the tune of jingle bells...






One last story told, one last joke, one last song.


I come back to the farmhouse. The snow is cruncy beneath my feet. It adds an aura of stillness and calm.

Hello, farmhouse, hello you, inside.

Friday

We start the second half of November with gray skies, somewhat warmer temperatures, a closed Snowdrop school (conferences!), and a rushed morning.

Ed is off to his techie meetings and I am off to shop for the weekend and to pre-shop for Thanksgiving. So breakfast is rather hurried.






For me, food purchasing is a real dance now. I have a full family Thanksgiving-ish brunch this Sunday, so foods are needed for that. Too, there are the regular weekly items and finally, I want to stock up on some basics for the Thursday Thanksgiving meals (that's right, there are many meals on that day!). It'll make for a lighter shopping trip next week. I'd made my lists. I start in on them.

And immediately after, I go to pick up Snowdrop -- not at school, but at her house, where a sitter has been with her during the morning hours. I wave hello and good-bye to Sparrow and bring the girl back to the farmhouse. I ask her what she'd like to do today. She tells me she is really missing quiet time: "books, couch and quiet -- I would like that best." (Could it be that her little brother was less than quiet this morning?)

This, of course, sounds pretty heavenly to me and we settle in on the couch. I read all twelve chapters of a new book and nearly finish a second one, all in the course of the afternoon.






In between, she draws. "Let's pretend we're at a scientists' school" she tells me. I'm agreeable.






She moves to her "office space," creating scraps of art that then form the heart of her stories.






Watching her work here is... well, inspiring.






A story is launched and I listen, but only a little. I can tell when her stories are public and when they're more private. This one is more for her own benefit.






It is a longer set of hours than we usually have together, but I have fewer photos to show for it. Something about the quiet nature of the day made me move more slowly with the camera. I suppose I'm getting ready for the crazy busy days ahead. Today was the calm before the grand storm of family and food.

Thursday

My mom turns 95 today. She isn't really keen on celebrations and so you wont see party photos, but still, the day surely belongs to her!

It's a gorgeous November morning. Sunny, a tad warmer. You could not ask for more in late fall.






Ed and I eat breakfast in the front room. So full of sunshine now! South facing rooms give the farmhouse its winter light.






And then I go to my mom's, with foods she may enjoy and we spend a quiet time catching up.






As I drive home afterwards, I swing by the lesser lake. It's hard to believe that it is ice covered now. I cannot ever remember such an early freeze in all the years (decades!) I have lived here.






In the afternoon, I pick up Snowdrop. I half hope that she'd like an outside romp -- after all, it's 42F (just about 5C) -- practically a heat wave!  But no, she is ready to snuggle in the farmhouse over a book, and then take on the world of make believe.






She likes it when I jump in, introducing troublesome characters, disruptors who mess with her story line.






Today I am the angry neighbor who wants to put a stop to her loud duck raising operation.






Eventually, the problem is solved. Negotiations lead to a resolution.






The world is at peace again.






And still the stories continue. Only the arrival of parents brings an end to the sagas. For today.


We're moving into the second half of November. This is when "holiday awareness" takes hold. I think about food. I think about family. I think about family and food and what should come when and with whom. The pace at the farmhouse picks up. Outside, the farmette gardens rest.

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.


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