Thursday - 90th

A thousand faces of Primrose -- this should be the title of today's post. Primrose. Granddaughter of mine. The girl I want to see in real time, real life, with real hugs, tears, giggles, songs. The girl that I can only see when her Chicago family can take the time to come here, and only if they can isolate beforehand. So many uncertainties going forward! But these days I never look ahead to some points in the future. There is this week and this day. And today, Primrose flashed her grin, held onto me, sneaked a peak into my cupboards, picked flowers, dug sand, splashed water, wolfed down broccoli and mango, sang songs, drew pictures and did a thousand beautiful things and it was magnificent.

The young Chicagoans are on their last day of a 10 day stay in Madison. Primrose spent yesterday and today with me at the farmhouse while her parents fit in a much needed escape.


After yesterday's rains, we wake up to your perfect sunny day. Thick humid air? Gone. Cool breezes and deep blue skies? Here once more.

I needn't have worried about the night: Primrose slept a deep farmhouse sleep and she woke up at exactly the right time with the most cheerful enthusiasm for the day ahead.






And so you get a thousand images of little Primrose. How can I do anything but snap one more picture, so that I can insert into my bank of stored memories, to relish during those longer weeks when she is just too far away...






Breakfast. "This strawberry is so big!"






Hey, we haven't done our usual timed release photo! Sweet radish girl, here we go!






Outside. We need to, we want to go outside. Thankfully the bugs aren't bad at all. She spots the sandbox. She wants the sandbox.






Oh, life! Aren't you just so beautiful?!






We explore. The barn. The cheeper coop. I show her where the hens lay eggs. Peach is there, but I push her aside for a second and boom! There is her egg and there is also a green one. Henny's laying again! Primrose, see the green egg?
Can I hold it?
You have to be ever so careful. Hold it lightly. Don't squeeze.
I'm not squeezing.






And now it's warming up just enough for me to consider pouring water into the wading pool. After her cousins' mega pool, this one is very tame. But still offering great splashing fun!






My older daughter and her two kids come for lunch. Primrose is a hugely affectionate child and Snowdrop, too, has missed running into a room with an excited hug for her best friend. It is no surprise then that a greeting between the two girls would look like this:






I want a cousin photo!






And now we eat lunch. (Aunt and little one)






And once again, we go outside. I suggest we follow all the paths I mowed yesterday. And we do! Primrose loves taking the lead!






Sparrow is content keeping to a steady gait next to mommy.






Wild daisies!










In these last minutes with all the kids, I have this great need for one more photo. Should we try for a group one? It used to be predictable: sit the kids down, give a tickle or say something silly. The perfect photo emerges. Now, it is anything but predictable. And still, a most perfect photo emerges.







The Madison family leaves. I am in my last minutes with Primrose. It's her nap time and she will be napping on the car ride home. Her home. So I do what I would do before any nap of hers -- read books. Favorites.

Parents are driving up the farmette driveway. One last hug, one last photo...





... and I send the little girl up the path to her waiting mommy and daddy. With some farmette rhubarb. If only I'd remembered to cut down some peony blooms to take back to Chicago!


Quiet house. And for the first time in many days, a dinner for only two. Leftovers.

It all came suddenly and it was intense and now we're back to our previous patterns, only not really. Predictability went out the door months ago. So we invent something new.

At its base, there is love. Always. Love.

Wednesday - 89th

Post storm quiet. Winds die down. We're not done with this steamy weather yet, but for this morning, all is calm.

I can't yet look at the flower beds. They need snipping, weeding, straightening. That's for the weekend. Right now I merely cut down some fallen peonies and bring them inside. (Not all of them tumbled. The single blossom ones aren't as heavy. They're still swaying and dancing, as if nothing had happened.)






Breakfast, on the porch, with an abundance of peonies.






Cutting: the path through the once-and-future meadows (in the farmette's young orchard) is rapidly overpowered by grasses following rainstorms. They are desperately in need of a trim. I take out the big tractor mower and mow them down.

And then I get ready for Primrose. Her parents are bringing her here at lunchtime and she is staying with me at the farmhouse while they go off on what has to be the first overnight for them in three months without childcare or work nipping at their heels.

Hi little one!






Lunch.






And now I have to say goodbye to my daughter and her husband and that's hard for me. I wont see them again, as they're doing a curbside pick up of their daughter tomorrow afternoon. (They'll have broken the isolation bubble we're maintaining and so we wont have contact with them again until at least two weeks will have passed and even that is iffy, considering the iffyness of everything these days.)

My most beloved younger girl -- how I will miss having her close to me!






But, for now, I have sweet Primrose here and that's a rare treat!

(seeking artistic inspiration)






I let her take the lead in play. She's two years and two months old. She knows her own mind.

The little one does want to do art. But markers are so yesterday! Especially when there's a pair of scissors to work with. ("I'm making little pictures")






(Primrose loves to poke around the kitchen cabinets. She makes periodic runs to them to see if anything's changed.)






(She is a good counter, but the numeric symbols are not something she encounters very often. I tell her that's an 8. She retorts: looks like a B.)






(Playing with toy foods. That's my basket of fruits and cookies, grandma. Don't steal it!)






And as evening approaches and rains sweep over our region once again, I take out the ingredients for supper. It's pizza making time!






(Not bad, given the specifications and the ages of the cooking crew)






And it's bedtime too, but hey, we can push things a little. What good is an overnight at grandma's if we don't break just a few rules! Besides, all the excitement of the past eight days surely has an effect on her. She has gone from predictable days at home with only parents as her sounding board to... the chaos of a larger family. She has held up supremely well, rolling with the intensity of cousin days, grandma presence, birthdays, swimming adventures (her cousin received a big inflatable pool for his birthday: all three kids have benefited from this timely gift), large family dinners and now a sleepover at the farmhouse. She is one together kid to have weathered it all so well.


Quiet. Evening quiet. This is the time to think about everything. There's so much and it's coming from all sides. But this week has been uniquely beautiful for us. In these strange and tumultuous times, it's been so very beautiful.

Tuesday - 88th

What can I say -- this is Sparrow's moment. My grandson turns two today. That young lad of many smiles and sweet hugs, who gets worried when attention comes at him from all directions surely has a right to the spotlight, even if it should be a gentle spotlight. Not too forceful. He likes to test the waters before plunging into mayhem! But here's a secret: if he can get you to laugh with him -- you'll be his friend forever.

It is also a unique day meteorologically speaking: we're getting blasted by a tropical storm. Yes, Cristobal is making its way here, to the upper Midwest. A tropical storm batters our state once in a lifetime (fourth such storm in 170 years of record keeping!) and for us, it's a "brace yourself" kind of forecast.

So, two big events, all on this warm and humid day.






(Ed and I still eat breakfast on the porch. We like it!)





For the rest of the day I concentrate on getting ready for Sparrow's birthday dinner that was to take place here, at the farmhouse. This includes cake baking of course. But I keep an eye out on the forecast. Heavy storms is a threat that makes you perk up and listen. And when there is the first brief sprinkle of rain, Ed comes in and tells me -- it's hot rain. Not your cool Wisconsin rain. Even in the Caribbean it never felt this warm.


In the late afternoon, the rains come down hard. Getting the toddlers up the driveway and into the house would be.... wet. So instead, Ed and I offer to move the party to my daughter's house. That means carrying cakes and gifts and seafoods (Sparrow loves a good spaghetti with squid, so it's on the menu!) and salads and cheeses and pots and pans and half the kitchen to the car, which is parked all the way down the driveway because we're concerned that leaving it under a willow tree during a major weather event is sort of begging for a branch to fall on top of it. All this in pounding rain straight from some southern regions of the globe, all the way up here to central Wisconsin.


And now we are safely in my daughter's home. I bring out everyone's beloved cheeses: d'Affinois and the 5year cheddar.






I turn to finishing up the dinner prep. Seafood pasta sauce. Shrimp, squid, salmon, and a tiny lobster tail, divided into nine even tinier pieces.

Oh, and time to whip up the cream for the cake.







My favorite band of cousins in the world!






There will be two more days of some degree of visiting and co-mingling, but this evening, this Sparrow birthday evening is the last time where we are all together. All nine of us.






Happy birthday, dear Sparrow!












Blow, little guy, blow!






(The best part for the kids? The chocolate ice cream, for sure!)






In the evening, the rains ease a bit, though it is still insanely humid. A bunny rabbit hops up to the house. The kids watch...






Just a little more play, just a little more! But it's past everyone's bedtime. Ed and I make our way home. Ed remarks how good it is to see the kids so happy.

It is. So very very good.

Monday - 87th

For future reference -- going to a popular county park on a Monday morning, even in beautiful summer-like weather -- is going to buy you a lot of open space and privacy. Social distancing made easy!

So this was our plan: we do our various chores and child duties and house tasks early (for me -- animal feeding and flower watering)...






We eat our respective breakfasts (for me -- on the porch, with Ed)...






... and then we drive over to Indian Lake Park. All the kids and most of the parents and me, split between two cars.

The kids are more than ready to go!






And yes, it is going to be a hot day.











You can feel it. It's palpable.






But too, it's a beautiful day to be out hiking!






So much to see! The first monarch butterfly. Daisies growing in the prairie. A frog crossing our path. A bird coming in for a landing in her birdhouse. It can boggle a young mind!


(Young minds plus one older one)






We pause for a snack.






Then we're on the move again. Up and down, past prairies and forests, with the ever present song of the many birds that share this open space with us.











And now we split up. Sparrow returns to his home with mommy to nap there. The younger family comes to the farmhouse. Snowdrop opts to come too. She's looking for some quiet farmhouse play while her cousin naps.

But first, lunch.






Eventually, while Primrose still sleeps, I join my daughter on the porch for a lazy chat about everything and nothing. The kind that I love so totally, with either daughter, or both daughters, and now especially with my Chicago daughter. Snowdrop meanders over to the porch as well and we all take out some markers and draw together. Despite the sticky heat. These two girls are the dedicated artists of the family -- they love drawing and they're good at it!
















And the loveliness of the day doesn't end there. When Primrose wakes up, we all drive over to my older girl's home. I bring food that we had planned on eating here, but then changed our minds. So, food, kids, grownups -- all packed into cars and we're off.


We are all still isolating. No contacts with anyone, no store shopping, all working at home, kids playing at home. But this week doesn't feel very isolating at all. It feels hugely beautiful because we are together.






And the kids play and we eat.


 


All things done in every country, in every community: eat, play, work. But oh how utterly sublime to be able, for this short period of time, to do it together.

We are not living a normal life right now. Nothing about washing groceries and moving away from people you may be passing is normal. Watching the dramatic events unfold in communities around the world is not normal. Still, on the home front, this day, this week are, for me, pure magic.





Yep. Pure magic.