Children – Page 6 – My Truant Pen

Bedeck’d with bays and rosemary

It was midnight when my fellow-Santa and I laid the final touches around the tree. The cookies artistically partially eaten. The massive stuffed animal with the bow. The careful interspersing of presents – the ones from Santa outermost to indicate the jolly old elf had laid them there himself. We were weary from a lovely long day of cleaning, cooking, preparing, and caroling at our church. Our children had fallen asleep in record time. We’d had a lovely chat with some old friends in the neighborhood, and now we were ready for repose. We lingered, looking at the tree lights, looking forward to the morning’s joyous faces.

The next morning at seven, I thought I heard some noise downstairs. “Aha!” I thought. “My children bestir themselves. Perhaps they’ve started to open their stockings! I don’t want to a miss a minute.!” I shook my beloved awake and headed down the stairs, muzzy-minded.

To my shock – my horror – a scene of wrapping mayhem lay below me. My sons were in the midst of a piranhic frenzy of quiet unwrapping. Well over half their gifts lay strewn around in the shards of wrapping paper littering the floor.

STOP! STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP! I sat on the stairs, weak-kneed, as they looked up at me with confused faces. “This,” I said to my similarly week-kneed husband, “May be funny later. Maybe.”

Perhaps this was the culprit of the Great Christmas Mayhem!

After a good number of deep breaths, a pot of coffee and a very long explanation to the children that we open presents TOGETHER like we have every Christmas for their entire LIVES, I satisfied myself that there was an excellent chance that Grey really believed he was being kind in letting us sleep in. We talked through the presents they had already opened, and slowly enjoyed the rest together. We did enjoy ourselves, once our hearts got back to a normal tempo.

I only wish I’d had the presence of mind to take a picture of the carnage, with the sweet, innocent confused faces wreaking it.

Twelve hours later, my brother, mother and father had all arrived in my house, bringing loot and Christmas cheer with them. As I worked on the roast lamb, I became increasingly uneasy with my menu. The lamb, with carrots, celery and parsnips, had seemed a quintessentially British dish, well served with Yorkshire Pudding and Christmas Pudding. But there was tomato sauce. The veggies were cubed small. And spice numbers 5 and 6 were turmeric and saffron. These are not British spices. On further review, the dish was downright Indian. So I scrapped the Yorkshire pudding and substituted rice, and I’m delighted to report it was absolutely the right call. (And a delicious recipe to boot!)

A beautifully set table with lovely people

I likely warned my family 10 times that night that I would not be offended if the Christmas pudding turned out to be inedible. It seemed unlikely to be good. 4 cups of raisins and only one each of flour and sugar? Dates and citrons? Suet? This incredible double boiling maneuver – done twice? I’d be lucky if anyone ate two spoonsful. The hard sauce – equal parts butter and powdered sugar – might be eaten straight. But I doubted even it could rescue this unlikely looking concoction. I poured the brandy on with liberal hand and set the pudding to blue flame, lasting far longer than I thought it would and bathing the wide eyes of my son in eerie light.

IT WAS DELICIOUS.

And so has this time with my sons and my husband, my mother and father and brother been. I hope you, too, have had a joyful and restful holiday!

I have pictures of our Christmas celebrations here.

Also, since all the Christmas Cards that will be sent have been sent, you can see pictures of the great photo shoot we had this autumn here!

Saturday morning vignette

My boys brought me breakfast, and my laptop, in bed this morning. About the time I’d caught up on all the latest hijinks of my Facebook friends, my beloved eldest son came in to snuggle me. “Whatcha reading?” he asked. (He is the world’s most obnoxious over-the-shoulder reader.) Well, I wasn’t reading much. So I pulled up “Glorious Dawn”:

That led us to reading about Black Holes (Grey made it through quite a heavy article on the topic). And that led us to an hour long Nova special on the nature of space:

Grey watched the whole thing, rapt. I did step away a few times, and when I came back he’d say, “Mom, you missed a lot.”

Following that, Grey wrote this letter to NASA:

Dear NASA I was wondering if we could go faster than the universe to see the universe EXPANDING, and if you could send a rectangular prism filled with water covered on all sides and launch it @ detect it and send the progress in our mail (redacted, but correct) if you could do that it would be very helpful. Is it nice being a scientist? If so i’m looking for a future job that could buy me a lot of books in a month. Make a lot of discoveries! Your friend, Grey , age Eight. 🙂

It’s just been a calm, quiet, lovely day – with time for Nova videos, Lego battles and Christmas music. As the first flakes of a major storm begin to fall, along with the cloak of darkness, we are together as a joyful family. This would all be even more peaceful if we weren’t headed to the Mythbusters: Behind the Myths show tonight in Lowell. I admit to some trepidation, between the 8 pm showtime and the major winter storm. But mostly, I’m excited, happy and content.

A gift to be simple

A pretty accurate reflection of our Christmas tree

I remember very distinctly getting Christmas presents for my father. There was the year I got him the post-it-note paint brush. I went through a phase of chocolate-covered Cherries – the kind you get in the super market. My sister and I thought soap-on-a-rope to be the utmost in paternal gift-giving.

My husband has gone for about a week for a work conference that has kept him very busy. On my last night home alone with the boys, I figured it was a great time to pick up some Christmas presents for daddy from his boys, and to pick up a book for Grey’s class book swap, so I swung by The Book Oasis and told the boys to pick out a book for their father. (Sorry for ruining the surprise love! They’re both books. The only reason you will not know within minutes of seeing Thane exactly which books is because he can’t remember the name.)

We then stopped by the grocery store, where the boys begged for *their own* wrapping paper. In a moment of parental weakness, straight off the “yes you will eat fish for dinner” battle in the meat section, I bowed to popular sentiment.

When we got home, Grey set right to wrapping. Eschewing lame things like “advice” he set about wrapping his gift to his father. His eyes lit up with the thought of placing this little package under the tree, of what his dad would look like when he opened the package. All of a sudden, one measly package to his dad wasn’t nearly enough. He locked himself in his room and yelled at the top of his voice, “NO ONE COME IN HERE! I’M DOING SOMETHING SECRET!” Several packages were added to the tree before bedtime hit with full force. I had to put my down on “just one more present!” and tell him to get his rear into bed.

As it was, he presented me with an “early Christmas present” – a Lego tree with Data and Tiberius under it. Thane, meanwhile, was desperately casting around the house for anything that might be put into his father’s stocking: pieces of gum, random bits of candy, half-used notepads.

The moment when you realize that giving good gifts is possibly even better than getting good gifts is an awesome moment. Generosity, especially when you get to bask in the recipient’s enjoyment and approval, feels *really good*. For the little ones the fun of Christmas morning is getting to open presents. But for me, the great pleasure is watching them open their gifts. It is a fantastic thing to see my sons learn the joy of generosity.

Thane turns five

Last night I went into a darkened room, as I do pretty much every night I am home, and I kissed a pair of boys good night. I climbed under Grey’s bed to the inviting cubby where Thane has been sleeping since Tiberius took over Thane’s room as a sick-room. In that darkened corner was my four year old (for another five minutes), his hands clasped as though in prayer, lying with an already beloved birthday book next to him. I kissed his forehead. He still sounds like a baby when he sleeps.

Camera “hide and seek” with Thane during apple picking

But that’s all the baby there is left to Thane. As he comes into his fifth year, he comes into his own. Thane has a tremendous sense of purpose and drive, and a deep commitment to his beliefs and ideals. This was somewhat… trying… this year as his beliefs and ideals often included things like “Not going to school” or “Making sure you heard him about what he thinks he smelled in the middle of church” (hint: it’s never good). I have consoled myself through some of his more adamant moments by reminding myself that some traits that are very difficult to parent at four are pretty awesome in an astronaut or CEO or Nobel-winning-scientist-who-is-too-stubborn-to-give-up.

Thane’s favorite time is tickle and snuggle time.

Thane’s personality becomes increasingly clear. His greatest gift is this remarkable spatial/color reasoning. He still loves to do puzzles (he tops out around 100 pieces because he has no strategy) and create symmetrical creations with shapes on our kitchen wall. However, now that he can force his fingers to obey his will better (he’s been frustrated by their lack of obedience for years) he’s really stepped up his game with Legos. For his birthday, I got him a Lego set rated for 8 – 12. I kind of figured his brother would help him. Instead, Thane did the Entire. Thing. By. Himself. I helped him find like two pieces he lost, and put on a few of the stickers.

His smile cheers me up every time I see it.

Thane is very innovative in how he puts his Legos together. He tends to develop more three dimensional creations than his brother. He does love minifigs best, and will often assemble armies of 20 – 30. His preschooler hands undo his work nearly as often as they finish it, but he persists until he matches his mind’s creation. Just for the record, Thane’s drawings and artwork are pretty normal – he seems pretty uninterested in drawing/coloring in general.

When not engaged in feats of spacial reasoning, Thane loves rough-and tumble play. His favorite thing in the whole world is “tickle and snuggle time in Mom and Dad’s bed”. He simply cannot get enough rough-housing, which would be more fun if his head couldn’t be categorized as a deadly weapon. He loves physical play. He’s been doing soccer for the last few weeks, and has done pretty well. With the advantage of a younger brother, he’s gotten to attend a few of his brother’s practices and last week actually did the entire practice with his fellow-four-year-old-younger-brother-friend.

The future’s so bright – he’s gotta wear SHADES!

Lately, Thane has been working very hard on learning to read. He has phonics down (except for period confusion between “b” and “d” – which come on, that’s hard.) His patience and diligence when he decides he’s going to read is astonishing. Just don’t let him corner you for “Hop on Pop” because that takes nearly an hour.

Thane loves Skylanders, even though he never plays – he watches his brother. He still loves Scooby Doo. He loves Digimon. He wants to be read stories about super heroes. He sings songs and makes up new words – and they’re often pretty good ones! He is constantly frenetic, and it is hard to get him to sit still for – say – dinner. But when he gets his focus on, he can sit quietly for an hour. He leads off practically every statement with “Guess what” and is desperate to get his points across. Sometimes he will insistently ask a question three times or four times, but fail to listen to all three answers. He can go across all the rings in the playground, hand over hand. He sleeps with his Puppy, worships his brother, and is 45.5 inches tall (91st percentile). Thane bounces when he walks.

Thane still holds my hold.

Happy fifth birthday, my beloved son.

You can see an album of our family adventures in October here, including a video of Thane reading.

If you want more Thane, here’s an album I’ve put together of some of his highlights this year!

What if?

Just a quick note to my beloved readers. My eldest son and his uncle submitted a question to the XKCD “What If” blog. And they published it! And answered it! How amazingly cool is that?!

http://what-if.xkcd.com/66/

Data and Tiberius

Grey's cats Tiberius and Data — Grey’s cats Tiberius and Data

I’m sure you all remember a few weeks ago, when Grey earned the 170 required checks to prove to us he was responsible enough to get a cat, who he was going to name Data. We came home a little early from camping, and Monday morning of Labor Day we were ready to go find Data. The only shelter open on Labor Day was the Northeast Animal Shelter, so that’s where we went. It was a really lovely shelter. The cat rooms were fantastic. I almost felt badly about taking the cats away from such perfect, lovely rooms!

It was Western Day at the shelter. — It was Western Day at the shelter

Oh right. Cats. Plural.

Well, we found Data. He was this beautiful, friendly, affectionate seven year old black cat. (His original name was Salem.) He was perfect. Just one thing, he had a bonded brother, Simon. They were a team, and only went together. Now you might think that putting two cat carriers into the car was an admission on my part that I thought this might happen, and you’d be right. Simon, or Tiberius as he quickly was dubbed (for, you know, James Tiberius Kirk), is a big, outgoing, adamant orange tiger.

In case you were wondering, the cats’ full names are Tiberius Milkstache Flynn (seriously, check out his moustache coloring!) and Data Android Flynn.

They spent a week in Grey’s room. The cats are apparently unaware that cats should eat cat food. They have turned their noses up at the very high end wet and dry food with which they have been provided. But Tiberius especially likes to eat bran flakes and pretzels. (Not that we let him, but that’s his preference.). Neither is particularly interested in playing with cat toys, but (of course) Tiberius loves playing with computer cables. I’m hoping we can eventually convince them to eat cat food and play with laser pointers and little kitty wands, but these things take time. The two of them are finally comfortable enough to be annoying in that way that cats are uniquely skilled in. They seem to be very good with kids, although Data doesn’t like to be put into a dark room.

I have to say, it’s really nice to have cats in the house again! And Grey HAS feed them every day. Win!

A tail of two puppies

Puppy's first day in our home. — Puppy’s first day in our home.

The Christmas just after Thane’s first birthday, Santa brought Thane a bunny rabbit stuffed animal. Grey had one that he’d creatively named “Rabby”, that joined the similarly creatively named “Puppy”. Thane already had a stable of stuffed animals, but the impulse to buy cute stuffed animals for your babies is strong and Santa could not resist it. Apparently (according to the wonders of blogging and Picasa), Santa originally named the animal Mr. Bun. But Thane, ears still not working properly (he didn’t get ear tubes for another few months), heard Grey call his stuffed animal (which was actually a dog) Puppy. After that, the bunny rabbit was Puppy, and that was that.

Thane and Puppy asleep in Thane's crib after Easter services. — Thane and Puppy asleep in Thane’s crib after Easter services.

Puppy quickly went to being one of many, to the one and only. Grey, lover of novelty that he is, never settled on one particular lovely. But Thane fell hard and fast for Puppy. By spring, Puppy was his true love. Thane would suck his thumb, holding on to Puppy’s ear with the bottom of his fist, and rub Puppy’s ear with his other thumb.

I, not being stupid, promptly bought a second Puppy. From that time one, anytime “Puppy” has needed a bath, I’ve subtly swapped out Puppies so they’ve stayed in synch in disreputability. Thane, as far as I know, has absolutely no idea there are two Puppies.

Over time, Puppy has only become more important. We have to firmly hold the line on where Puppy is allowed to go (in the car, but not ok for Preschool). If Thane had his way, there would be no Puppy-free moments, ever. He wanders the house with Puppy in his hand. Puppy apparently aspires to a career as an aviator – he spents significant time airborne, flying high and long. Thane twists Puppy around by the ear or leg, and reflexively plays with Puppy, all the time. Puppy is a constant in Thane’s life.

Right before Camp Gramp, through excessive love, Thane pulled Puppy’s arm off. As I tacked it back together with grey thread (being no seamstress, assuredly), I congratulated myself on my forethought. Thank heavens I have two Puppies! But at the same time, I felt a sense of foreboding. I had hoped that they would endure a little longer. I mean, after the loving abuse the poor Puppies have accepted as their daily lot, it is unsurprising that they would come apart at the seams. They are extremely well made stuffies. But for one thing, this is a distinction between them. For another, I was afraid that they were both becoming long in the tooth.

My worse fears were recognized as the second Puppy suffered a terrible leg wound after being thumped against Grey in an attempt to wake Grey up. So now both Puppies have different, but significant trauma.

So… I went and bought a third Puppy. As you can see from the photo, the condition of the two Puppies is rather different. New Puppy is currently on his fourth cycle through the washer/dryer, and holding up way too well if you ask me. I wonder if the only way to get that patented Puppy look is through actual experience as a Puppy. And I’m also really wondering if this will work, even if I get a better Puppy patina. Will Thane notice? How great a betrayal will it be to take his beloved Puppy and replace it with a lookalike? Does it matter that I’ve been betraying him that way since he could say only 20 words? Will he shrug off the multiplicities of Puppy (a possibility), or will knowing of my deceit destroy Puppy in his heart? I can think of few crimes I might commit greater than taking Puppy from Thane, whether physically or metaphysically.

What would you do? Would you say, “Hey, Thane, I got you another Puppy! Let’s put this one on the shelf?” Would you replace gray thread with fishing line and start in on some more serious surgery? Would you claim that Puppy went to a really good spa (next time it’s time for a Puppy bath) and that’s why he’s looking so much better?

Sometimes, as Thane drifts lazily towards sleep, Puppy in his hand and thumb in his mouth, he tells me softly. “Puppy is my best friend, mommy. I love Puppy with my whole heart. He’s a part of our family.”

Yes, yes Thane. He is.

I was going through my blog posts, and it appears I refer to Puppy in almost every developmental update I’ve done for Thane. Here are a few:

Thane at 18 months

The changing of the seasons

Thane at Three

Thane at Four

I’ll tell you what I want, what I really really want. As soon as I figure it out.

I was sad when the schedule came out so that Adam and I could not spend Camp Gramp week in wild hedonism together, doing things like “sleeping in” and “playing board games”. BOTH weeks this year where my parents would take the kids, there were gaming conventions. I could hardly ask Adam not to go to Gencon, so that was just the way of it.

Is this what relaxing looks like for me?

The brilliant upside was this: I would be alone. All alone. No one else in the house. No cat, no dog, no kids, no husband. I even decided to take a day or two off from work, to do whatever it was I wanted to do. Just me and my desires to attend to. I wondered, in the cold days of spring, what amazing thing I would do with my free time. I imagined driving up the Atlantic coast, stopping to stare out at the wild waves of Maine. Or maybe I’d manage to find a friend and go backpacking! (That is actually what I really wanted to do. The problem is with the find a friend part. I’m reckless, but not that reckless.) Maybe I’d finally hike Mt. Chocorua. Maybe I’d slip my passport and a change of clothes into a bag and just go wherever the road took me. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

I had a tumultuous lead time up to my great liberty. It went something like this:

Friday – work full day, pick up farmshare, drive 6+ hours to New York
Saturday – fail to find Appalachian trail
Sunday – hike Appalachian trail and drive back to Boston
Monday – work full day then fly out to Los Angeles on the redeye
Tuesday – have meetings in LA, watch Elysium with the sales team, fly back on redeye to Boston
Wednesday – all day company outing at Crane Beach. Buy plums.

Thursday I had originally planned for a day off, but I was so behind on stuff that I ended up working. Thursday evening arrived, and I relaxed by cleaning the kitchen, buying a new weedwhacker, getting my nails done and making 2 batches of plum jam.

Pie, red plum jam and golden plum jam – two night’s of labor laid deliciously out.

Friday was supposed to be the prime day of my great relaxing. But. Well. I started with an earlyish morning appointment at the chiropractor. (See also: twelve hours of long haul driving and two six hour redeyes in a five day period). And then I came home to a house that was a DISASTER. The kitchen was a mess. The living room was a mess. The dining room was a mess. The kids’ bedrooms made the rest of the house look downright clean. My bedroom was appalling. The carpets needed cleaning. And so that’s what I did.

I mowed the lawn. (I still need to edge it. Sigh.) I cleaned out Thane’s room. I cleaned his carpet. I cleaned out the upstairs hall. I cleaned the carpet. I cleaned my room. I cleaned the stairs carpet. I organized the living room and removed stuff we didn’t need any more. I cleared off surfaces in the dining room. I did the dishes. I cleaned the kitchen. I picked up the farm share. I cleaned the ‘fridge. I prepped all the farmshare food. I made blueberry pie. I invited friends over for a glass of wine and blueberry pie. Then I was GOING to SIT AND WATCH THE BASEBALL GAME, but it was a bad game and I practiced my trumpet and guitar instead, while flipping between the Sox and the Patriots. By 11 at night, the house was cleaner, but hardly done, and I was completely exhausted.

Saturday morning, I cleaned Grey’s room properly. (That was the hardest of them.) I dropped off dry cleaning. I went to the bank. I did the bills. Finally, I left to New York to go pick up the boys.

So what did I do with my precious, precious time of liberty? I caught up on chores. In fact, I pushed myself HARD to attempt to get as many chores done as possible.

“What” says the extremely ardent reader who has made it so far through my litany of “ohmygosh am I busy!” – “What makes you think we’re interested?” It’s this, oh Ardent Reader. It was something of a revelation of my sense of self. I think it will come as no surprise to anyone who knows me that being busy and engaged in satisfying labors is part of who I am. It’s not a small part either, and I think it’s growing. That’s no bad thing, because I am satisfied with being satisfied by labor.

But I think it also sounds the warning gong of a person too busy. I may fully utilize my time to be productive, but in exchange for what? Would I have been better off reading a book on the (overgrown) back lawn? Would my life be richer if I had gone North and left my farmshare to fend for itself? Or would I be less happy, heading into my busiest time of year in a chaotic and unrestful environment? How many days would I have to have off in order to feel like I was done with what needed doing? Or is that a goal that can even be accomplished? How do I draw the line between true work that needs to be done, work that I think needs to be done, things that I do that are like work but are also hobbyish (like canning), and true leisure and rest?

I’m curious how you, oh Ardent Reader, navigate these decisions. How do you draw the lines?

Camp Gramp 2 – 2013

Now, for your next installment from Camp Gramp! – ed

Take the lack of updates as an indication that we have been really busy, really busy! Camp Gramp is going well. All the children are still alive and so are the adults, although there is a pernicious cold weaving its way through the camp and that is sad!

Saturday night Matthew and I went to the store.

Sunday was picnic day. The church had a tent erected on the back lawn and put up tables, etc. Lots of work. Matthew and I team preached, there was music, the food was great. They had set up a frisby golf course and Baz got a 38 on a par 33 course — excellent. For the others, especially Kay, the hit of the day was the rabbits. The brought a good sized fun and 5 or so pet rabbits. Happiness! Dave and Jan from Shepherd of the Hill were there, so it was a West Coast sort of day. Very nice!

Then Matthew and I went to the store.

Monday was Camp Holmes day. We went to the camp where Matthew worked all summer. We went for a hike to the lemon squeeze, a fractured rock the kids could crawl through. Did you know Paul Bunyan made the rock. Amazing! Then they went swimming and boating. Finally the older three went on the challenge (low ropes) course with Uncle Matt. A good time was had by all.

We got home, did a bath round, and watched Home Alone II — in honor of our intended trip to NY. Then Matthew and Don went to the store.

Tuesday was supposed to be New York, New York, but it was raining hard when we got up and the forecast was for thunder storms. Not a New York sort of day. So instead, we went to Yonkers. In Yonkers (I just need to say that several times since it is such a cool word) we went to Lego Land.

Lego Land is a gold mine. I want stock in Lego Land. I would think it is smaller than Macys, but it was swarming with kids and their attendant adults.

There was a ride in which we got to shoot spiders and other things. Carolyn got over 8,000 points on the first ride. I am not going to get in Thane’s way when he has a ray gun! He is a shooting demon. We successfully rescued the princess.

Then we went through the New York scape. Amazing what you can do with Legos.

The main room had a climbing toy which the younger three tore through like mad. Uncle Matt took them all to the master builders event. They built and raced cars at the track. Kay went on the merry-go-round kind of thing with the long suffering Uncle Matt and the boys opted for more time in the climbing toy.

For me the highlight was the 4-d movie. Even Don was reaching out and trying to grab stuff. There was wind when the helicopter took off and rain when the fire hose was turned on us. (mist would be more accurate). It was only 15 minutes long and left me wanting more!

Of course the exit was through the Lego store where money was spent. Grey owes me $5 because of the insufficiency of the allowance given by the Camp Gramp treasury.

On the way home, we stopped at a diner. The brown and white milkshake was good. I had a happy waitress, which is two pieces of Wonder bread with bacon, tomatoes, and cheese on it — all grilled. One should experience these sorts of things, you know.

Don and I went to the store after Yonkers.

Today, Wednesday, is to be a quiet day. I think we are all tired. Matthew has bought Don and I tickets to a Shakespeare play in the park tonight, in honor of our anniversary, which we spent in Yonkers. I am excited. He will be in charge of Camp Gramp while we are gone, but don’t worry, he is good at it!

Tomorrow, New York!

The deficiency at Camp Gramp is definitely picture taking, but I will upload a few of them for you soon. We are too busy to take pictures.

Peace (and you are the ones who have it), =gmm

Camp Gramp 2013: Day 1

For the new reader, Camp Gramp is an annual tradition where my parents take all four of their grandchildren for a week of riotous hedonism. There are bouncy houses, Chuck E Cheese, DS games and screens, and best of all – time with cousins and grandparents that makes a lifetime of memories. During Camp Gramp week, we parental types usually idyll, and leise and vacate. This year, unfortunately, Gencon and my husband’s annual attendance is getting in the way of a big vacation, but we had some lovely time wandering home. Anyway, during Camp Gramp week, my mom usually emails roughly daily updates about the hijinks ensuing for us parental types. I usually pass those on to you, my avid readers.

Enjoy!

-Brenda, not Grandmama

Camp Gramp officially started with the singing of the Camp Gramp song*. then we made our shirts. This year is a lego theme. Aunt Heidi found us vinyl iron-on lego men with the kids names on them. Very cool. Kay added red hair. Thane made an engine to go on his shirt. After a couple of false starts, they are safely installed on the shirts. No one writes instructions anymore. They send you a web link to a youtube video. Actually, much more effective.

I guess the big news is that my fourth trip to the grocery store was for anti-biotic ointment. It was the Flynn children who needed the bandaids. Grey feel and skinned his elbow and Thane has a bruise on his face and an abrasion on the back of his neck. Ouch! So far it has not been beyond my capabilities.

Tomorrow, church picnic. Matthew and I will be preaching on Death in the Pot! Could this be the first church picnic? Then we will all picnic on the lawn.

Peace, Grandmama

*Camp Gramp theme song was added two years ago, I believe. It references Lucky Charms.