March 6 and 7 Brendan comes over

Friday and Saturday:  I've been trying every other Friday night to have one of the kiddos spend the night. With me being sick for 10 days kind of through our schedule off, and since I am leaving Thursday (on a jet plane) for nine days to visit my brother in Florida, also throws things off. But I am at least making an effort, which is very worth it. Having 1-on-1 time with a grandchild is absolutely priceless.

Brendan is no longer a little kid. I can't call him "Little Fellow" anymore; but once upon a time, that name fit him SO well. He is fourteen now and in the eighth grade at school. I'm always a bit surprised that he still wants to come over and spend the night, but he does!

We did a variety of things here at the house--lots of it was just hanging out together. We did play a few games: "Fox and Geese" and "Four-in-a-Row" Friday night after we ate dinner. We talked about choosing a movie to watch at about 7pm--making that choice took us awhile. I pulled out about five movies that Brendan hadn't seen in a long time--a few of which he had never seen--but when I asked him to choose, he said none of those movies looked terribly interesting to him. Sigh. So, he went over to the movie shelf and decided to watch a "classic"--"Homeward Bound." Good choice!

I popped a bunch of popcorn, poured the soda, turned off lights, and we settled down to watch the movie. It had been quite a long time since we'd seen it, so it was fun to see it again. Brendan loves animals, and this is a very good animal story with a happy ending. Brendan also brought along a library book which he read when we were in-between activities.

We went to bed at about 10:15 and slept all the way until 8am. It took Brendan a little while to fall asleep, but he says he's the same way at his house--he thinks he probably fell asleep somewhere around 11. 

Brendan asked if he could make another sock puppet, so we hauled out our puppet-making supplies from my art cupboard and he got to work on it.

Brendan created a sheep that was dressed up as a human (try to picture that!) and worked very diligently at his creation. This puppet is named "BOB." 

Here are a few of our other sock puppets we have designed over the years ...

We also watched the highlights of a few old episodes of "America's Got Talent" when a 12-year-old girl won the big prize doing her ventriloquist act. Her name is Darci Lynn and she is amazing with her puppetry. It was fun to watch all of her really cool puppets--she can even make them sing without moving her lips! Anyway, then we got Paco, Ramone, Oscar, and Sunny out of the puppet bin and played puppets for about an hour.

Brendan has always loved these puppets. Paco, naturally, is everyone's favorite because I've had him the longest. But our "Flooglebird" whose name is Sunny, comes in at a close second. He's rather large, and very hairy. It's very fun to play with him.

I took Brendan out to lunch at Culver's on the way back to his house. Yum. I ordered the Walleye with cheese curds, and Brendan ordered a Butterburger with cheese curds AND a chocolate shake. We had a nice time at dinner, and then it was time to take Brendan back home.

I had such a nice time with Brendan. Truly, he has such a super kind heart. I love him so much. Thank you, Lord, for Brendan.

March 5 Procedures

Thursday:  I picked Jesse up today at 8:15 to take him to have two procedures: (1) an endoscopy; and (2) a colonoscopy. The reason he was having these tests was actually because he has had acid REFLUX for nearly 20 years and has been on antacids and other meds for that condition, he also has a hiatal hernia, so his doctor wanted to do the scope to check out the health of his esophagus -- and while they were knocking him out, why not do a colonoscopy since he's never had one?!

We drove over to the Metro Hospital complex (off from M-6) and found the professional building, which is right across from where Jesse goes for his veteran's stuff--so he knew how to find it. We got him checked in by 8:45 (exactly on time) and then we went through all of the hoops (medical questions, forms, signatures, etc.) from then until they wheeled him away at 10:00 to do what had to be done.

Jesse returned to the recovery area at 10:45 VERY sleepy. His nurses and doctor came in with the initial report that all was well on "both ends." YAY. There was a small benign-appearing polyp removed from both areas which they will biopsy (routine). 

Jesse had to wake up enough to get his street clothes back on, so we didn't actually wheel him out to the car until about 11:30. Once we were back at his house, Jesse was finally able to eat something (he hadn't eaten a single thing for 36 hours ... or smoked or vaped for that amount of time either), so he heated up some leftover pizza and laid down for a nap.

Kaity came home from school at her usual time and relaxed in her room for awhile before she came out to eat something. By that time, Jesse was awake and he visited with us awhile. It was such a nice time!

Kaity was showing me an algebra problem she had for homework. Whew. Algebra. Not exactly my strong suit whatsoever. Kaity seems to enjoy it, which is good!

It is very very VERY rare that I take a photo of Kaity, so I just had to sneak a few in while I had the chance. Isn't she pretty? And there is Jesse in the background!

How thankful I am to spend time with these two today. I feel super blessed.

March 4 Cardinal Couple

Wednesday:  I can't actually say which birds are my favorite ones BUT since my most favorite color is RED, the Cardinals do come very near to being my favorite to see at my window almost every day. They come together, the male and female, ALWAYS. How is it that they pair up like this and stay together? I am so curious about it! In eternity, when I am living in my new resurrected body (I will not be a disembodied spirt, but I will have a BODY), I'm going to have a whole bunch of beautiful birds and other wild animals that I will enjoy completely. I'd like to have a bunch of chipmunk pets and squirrels too!

I have been re-reading "Heaven" by Randy Alcorn and it has been so good for me to remember that because of what Jesus accomplished for me in his death and resurrection, He has promised and already granted eternal life to all who believe. Since I DO believe, this world really should not be my first love since it is only temporary. God has promised to make a "new heaven and a new earth" where He will live with us and we will serve Him ... forever ... no more curse, pain, tears, sorrow ... just JOY and PEACE and endless ADVENTURE. !!!

March 3 with the kiddos

Tuesday:  What a nice time I had with the kids this afternoon. The thing is--ALL of these guys are SO interesting to be with! And they sincerely seem happy to see me every single week, which is something I do not take for granted.

I think what I enjoyed most today was watching how they all play together. And Aidan seems so much more settled in his heart and mind these last few months--less edgy, and so much more happy. I'm so thankful to see him behaving more consistently ... normal. It's difficult to describe Aidan. I believe that he has a brilliant mind that oftentimes makes him miserable because he seems to be two steps ahead of everything and everyone around him and it vexes the daylights out of him. But lately, he just seems less bothered by life in general. Thank you, Lord.

Here are a few pictures I took of the kiddos today: This is SO typically CAL. He absolutely kills me and cracks me up completely. What a kid.

Aidan was very pleased to show me his new sneakers--very nice!

Erin came off the school bus reading her library book and continued to read as she walked down the sidewalk until she reached the crossing point. I was very relieved when she tucked her book under her arm before stepping out into the street. This is the little one who was somehow "delayed" in reading a year ago, which was a total surprise for her parents to find out (me too!), but apparently she has just "taken off" with reading this year. We all knew she would! She lives in a READING HOUSEHOLD for pity's sake.

I brought my Tetras game with me and we enjoyed playing a few rounds of it while the kids were eating their after-school snack.

Afterwards, Aidan beckoned me to the basement to show me the fancy car he had designed for Cal. I love these pictures of them so much! Aidan explained that HE was the engine.

Erin had a little vehicle of her own, with a fancy computer-operated system. She was quite pleased with it.

The kiddos grabbed my phone to take a few "selfies" and we all cracked up doing it.

Isn't Aidan growing so handsome? The picture below was the final "selfie" and totally cracked Aidan (and all of us) up.

I missed out taking any pictures of Brendan. Hopefully, I will make up for that this weekend when he comes for his overnight on Friday. I'm trying to pick a "wholesome" movie for the two of us to enjoy. The last few times I kind of let Brendan pick a movie, kind of out of the blue, one that I had never heard of, and I struggled to enjoy movie time! So, I'm going to make myself be aggressive and do the choosing of our movie this weekend. Hopefully, Brendan will be okay with this. He is FOURTEEN now, so any time he is actually willing to come over and spend a night I cherish highly! I know that pretty soon he will not want to do this anymore; and even though I accept that completely, it's something that I hope won't happen suddenly. 

February 24 Good enough!

Tuesday:  I came down with a virus almost 10 days ago which leveled me flat. Today was the very first day I felt "recovered" enough to be out and about. Since I'm pretty sure this virus originated at the "Pahman household," I wasn't afraid about passing germs on to the kiddos today. I have slept so much in the last week that I wonder I will ever need to sleep again! I did visit the doctor's office last week Wednesday, just to make certain I wasn't dying or anything. My throat was so sore, it seriously felt like I was swallowing flaming arrows. I am so thankful to be healed from this virus--thank you, Lord!

I did some cleaning this afternoon over at the house before the kids came home from school. I didn't have enough strength to clean with much gusto--but I felt I at least made a little difference in the kitchen area. It's important to me, as an older person, to feel I am some use to the family--otherwise ... I feel so selfish and useless! So, I am thankful they let me help clean up around their house once a week.

I remembered to bring a few of my toys along with me to play with the kids. Cal's very favorite toy is my fox/wolf tic-tac-toe. Cal is very good at this game! He doesn't like to lose EVER ... so I have to watch him carefully, because he likes to switch up the rules in his favor. (!!) I am pretty careful not to allow him to do that, though--it's just bad training for him. We had a long discussion this afternoon about "cheating", and I kept it "light" and pleasant, but strongly came out with a negative vote for cheating of any kind. Cal accepted this and went on to legitimately beat me THREE games in a row. THREE.

I also brought my JENGA blocks with me. What's so interesting about these children (all FOUR of them) is that they will BUILD with anything you give them! I mean--these guys are used to sophisticated LEGO models and build them accurately. But give them a bunch of plain wooden blocks ... and they make all kinds of cool stuff out of them! They enjoy playing the game JENGA, but they have just as much fun building out of them. I find this amazing actually. 

It's difficult to see that this is Brendan (below) because I can't find his face for his hair ... but Brendan is an expert builder. He always has been since he was a very little person!

In the container beside Erin, there is CLAY. Molding clay. NOT PlayDoh. I'm talking hard, molding, difficult to work with CLAY. All of these children have 3-D brains. Mine is completely FLAT! I watched Erin work with the Jenga blocks as she made a little "shopping store" out of them, and then she used the modeling clay to make little tiny animals and people (carrying itsy-bitsy purses!) shopping in her store.

Aidan took some of the Jenga blocks to build a tower of some kind--he has such patience and determination.

Erin worked on this little project for over an hour, happy and singing and creating ... I don't have enough words to say how great I think this is!

Look at these two!

It was SO good to be here today, laughing, and listening, and playing. I have been alone for too many days in a row! I'm going to begin to be eccentric if I'm not careful. Old people get that like. I don't want to get like that. !!

February 13-14 Cal's sleepover

Friday/Saturday:  It's "winter break" at all of the area schools, so most of the public schools were "off" either Friday and Monday, or Monday and Tuesday of next week. Forest Hills was off Friday and Monday. I was able to pick Cal up Friday afternoon for a sleepover. This little guy cracks me up on a regular basis. He really loves to come and spend the night, so I need to soak the joy of this up to the brim for as long as I can!

Cal LOVES this table foosball (soccer) game so much. We must have played 15 games of it while he was here. Cal definitely does NOT like to lose at any game he plays (this trait runs in his family!), so he has a way of making "changes" to the rules to accommodate that goal. I will say, though, he did "allow" me to win a few games, but only because he was so far ahead in the "win" category that there was no threat that I would overtake him. Look at his little face (below)! He is such an adorable little person.

One of the rule changes Cal made was if he made a goal using one of his corner guys, it counted as TWO points instead of one. The problem was, though, that almost all of his "guys" were dubbed "corner guys"! What a little stinker.

We played a lot in the spare bedroom that has a lot of toys in bins and cubbies. Cal has always liked this Duplo set that allows you to construct your own little road or raceway--the micro-machine vehicles work perfectly in the little roads. After we construct the design, Cal demands (!!) that we each pick a micro-machine vehicle for our race. This doesn't look very interesting in pictures, but Cal has such a blast playing with this set that he goes at it for 30 minutes at a stretch sometimes.

We also did a lot of fishing this weekend with our fishing poles and magnetic fish. Cal gets a real kick out of reeling his fish in and dumping them in our pretend bucket. The expression on his face (below) says it all.

Our movie time began at about 7:00. Cal requested that we watch "Home Alone One", so we did. I can't even count how many times I have seen that movie. Still ... it's fun to cuddle and watch a movie with this little guy. Cal went to bed without any issues whatsoever by about 8:45 and went immediately to sleep!

Cal slept all the way until 7am Saturday morning. He immediately wanted to have another foosball tournament, so we did that!

We also played quite a bit with our puppets, except I only took pictures of Cal and Alfredo. Alfredo is our alligator puppet that has a very wide mouth and a hidden stomach so that you can feed him small objects. I also have a tiny alligator finger puppet (his name is Grumpy)--his dad is Alfredo. Cal really got into these two this time around, but he also played with Oscar (I can't even think what kind of animal he is right now), and Sunny (our rather large and hairy Floogle-bird puppet). 

We also played basketball with our indoor set, which was really fun--but I forgot to take any pictures of Cal shooting baskets. 

I got all of my little wind-up toys down from the shelf and we wound them all up to see which one was the fastest moving one. The giraffe definitely was faster than the others.

We played a few games with our magnets too. This game is very fun, and the magnets are super strong.

For lunch on Saturday, I grilled both of us a delicious ham and cheese sandwich. Cal consumed it like it was candy! Yay! Cal has a very healthy pallet and is super easy to feed. 

The last game we played was my very fun "Fox and Wolf Tic-Tac-Toe" game. Cal's quite an expert at this game and legitimately won quite a few games--which delighted him to no end.

What an interesting little person you are, Cal! I'm so glad I get to be your grandma. Thank you so much, Lord.
 

February 10 with the kiddos

Tuesday:  The last few weeks with the kiddos, I neglected to bring any of my toys from home for them to play with after coming home from school. Today--I remembered! I brought JENGA, some colored dominoes, and the fox & wolf tic-tac-toe game. I also had a supply of Valentine chocolates to share and tiny decorated bundt cakes from Meijer (not pictured). 

Brendan is home about 45 minutes prior to the "littles" bus drop off, so I always get a chance to visit with him for a little while every Tuesday. I am thankful for this because once the other kids get home, it's almost too overwhelming to try to follow Brendan's conversation in any meaningful way. Today's topic was mostly his D&D stuff he got from his birthday. It's probably my least favorite subject (other than Pokemon), but it's important that I listen to him and try to interact ... because this is important to him, and he is important to me! Brendan has such a beautiful soul and I love to see him smile as he talks. Connecting with him is challenging when there are other disruptions going on--but one-on-one is doable if I try hard enough. I love him to pieces.

The other kiddos arrived home about 10 minutes earlier than usual. They told me that their bus was on time for ONCE! I love to play with these children. They are so artistic! And excellent builders! And quite intense! 

And VERY silly!

How would I describe Callaghan? Maybe a better question would be: How COULD I described Callaghan? First of all, he's hilarious. He's cut from the same cloth as Aidan and Erin, as far as stubbornness is concerned; but he far surpasses them in just complete "otherness" ... like he belongs to a different dimension or galaxy. He comes up with the most unique responses. His humor is so keen that he cracks himself up!

The cuteness of Cal ...

It's Cal's turn to come for an overnight this Friday. He enjoys physical activity, so I'm going to have to get my body in shape (!!) in the next few days in order to play basketball, chase him around the house, get him in locked body positions that he cannot escape without the correct password, throw paper airplanes around ... anyway, you get the gist. He sleeps really well here, so I won't have to stay up late (like I do with Erin), but ... remember ... Cal is an EARLY riser--6am is not unusual for him.