November 15 Lovely Kiddos

Friday:  Sir Callaghan was intent on playing basketball today. I usually have this little hoop in my laundry hallway, hanging high on the door that leads to the spare room. But that hallway is so narrow and the hoop is so far beyond Cal's reach that he continually requests that I LIFT him up closer to the hoop so that he can dunk it. This, however, is a bit of a problem for ME. Last I knew, Cal weighed 38 pounds--and these are SOLID pounds. This kid is one tough little kid. I'm finding it more and more difficult to actually lift him. I can still ride him on my back, but lifting from the front just doesn't work anymore.

SO ... I moved our little hoop into the kitchen area and put it lower on one of the cupboards. Cal was very pleased; except it was WAY TOO EASY for him to just stand next to the hoop, lift his body up on his tippy-toes, and very simply place the ball in the hoop. And I did let him do this for awhile--but really! This isn't any way to learn how to shoot hoops!

I eventually moved the hoop up one cupboard higher, which made it more difficult--but not impossible for Cal to shoot the ball and every now and again actually have it go through the hoop. I found that Cal enjoyed playing more in the wide open space than he does in the hallway, and it was easier for me too.

Cal insisted that each time we actually "scored" some sort of fanfare ought to happen; so we settled on my whistle and blew it with great gusto when either of us made a basket.

Here is Cal after running around shooting hoops for 10 solid minutes. He was exhausted.

The picture below: Look at his face!!! Isn't he a scream?

After we had exhausted basketball, we were looking for something interesting to do around here and I got to thinking that Cal had never played with either "Rat" or "Charlie" -- with good reason, too! These two puppets are marionettes and are a bit fragile because of how easy it is to tangle up their strings. Knowing that Cal is a rather rambunctious little guy, I haven't shown these to him! He's a roughian! 

SO ... he and I had a little talk. I told Cal all about "Rat" and "Charlie", explaining how careful one must be to play with them and his dear little soul assented to "being VERY careful". 

Cal was SO PLEASED! He did an excellent job of taking care of "Huskie" (we changed his name from "Rat" to "Huskie" because Cal insisted that this puppet was NOT A RAT!!!). I agree! So, he is now "Huskie."

Cal was quite taken with him!

Then I fetched "Charlie" and showed Cal how to make him walk one foot at a time, which cracked Cal up.

But, being VERY careful, little Cal managed to make "Charlie" walk!

Doesn't Cal completely crack you up???

He even took a 2 second nap with his new friends. Since it was nearly 3:00 by then, I relented and put a "Hot Wheels" video on for Cal while I cleaned the place up a bit. Animated cartoons are NOT what they used to be in even my boys' day. Terrible art! Stupid story lines! And VIOLENCE in every single story. No wonder Cal has to make every toy of mine enter into a war to the finish! He even does this with PlayDoh!

Cal slept in my car on the way to his house and then we played with the other kids when they came home from school.

Aidan set up an area in the basement to play "I SPY." [note the items in the cleared out area.]

I brought along my game of "Sleeping Queens" for Erin and I to play because last week she mentioned playing the game with one of her neighbor friends. We played two games. Erin won both of them!!!

We went back downstairs and played until Dylan and Kelly texted me to bring the kiddos over to Holy Trinity by 6:00. Erin was showing me all of her unicorns that her mom had found while cleaning the basement! Yay, Kelly! 

 

November 14 Such a nice time with KT

Thursday:  My glaring question has been and continues to be: how do I carry on a good relationship with Kaity now that she is almost grown up, has a ton of other interests, is distracted a lot by her phone ... ??? I remember when Emma was this age--but then Emma was usually with Chris and Matt and they came over as a threesome, playing together and interacting ... it wasn't just ME. It's not that Kaity puts any pressure on me to "entertain" her--not at all, actually. But I always feel a little regretful when we spend 4+ hours together and haven't really interacted very much. Last Thursday, Kaity was too sick to care one way or the other; and thankfully, she was happy enough to lay on my couch, covered in a nice soft blanket almost the entire time she was here.

I took a few pictures of what we did today: I followed Kaity into the spare bedroom and we both looked for a game or two we hadn't played in awhile. I grabbed the "Story Cubes" and Kaity was very enthusiastic about them! So we went out to the front room and told hilarious stories to each other. It's really quite fun to stretch our imaginations a bit!

We also played with this brain teaser puzzle (fashioned just like many others), but we persisted at playing quite a few times. The best I did was leaving only THREE pegs! The goal is to leave only ONE. We had fun trying different tactics to see what would and wouldn't work. Most did NOT work!

I also remembered these unusual puzzles that I don't think I have ever shown to Kaity. Aidan has played with them here before, but I keep them on a shelf that isn't usually a place for toys--so I tend to forget I have them. 

Kaity was very scientific about how she solved each dinosaur puzzle and I was impressed! 

We also did lots of sharing of animal videos and our other "usual" stuff around here. It was such a nice few hours with Kaity!

November 14 Throwback Thursday

Thursday:  My roommate, Robbie, sent a text to me the other day with THIS picture attached! She said she was looking through an old box of pictures and came across it out of the blue! This picture had to be taken sometime in perhaps the spring of 1985 because Dylan (who is on my lap) was born in 1984 and he looks to be about a year old in this picture. I'm not sure if Robin and Scott were still in Grand Rapids at this time, or if they were home on furlough from Africa. Scott's family was from the Grand Rapids area. Perhaps they were "home" visiting Scott's family--I really can't recall!

I'm not sure what I am laughing about, except whenever Robbie and I get together we are constantly in a state of crack-up. Look how long my hair is! And these three boys ... so many years ago now. Hmm. How does time go by ... almost 40 years ... like a blink in many ways. I would say that I miss those days--and much about them I DO--but not in other ways. I wouldn't want any of us to have to live them over again just as they were. 

I am thankful for this picture, though; because it is good to remember how much I loved being mom to these three little people--so different from each other! Such unique little guys. Thankful for them.

November 9. Kaity is better!

Saturday:  YAY! Kaity feels much better today. We had such a nice time at my house--nothing phenomenal occurred; but it was just a lovely, very relaxing time together. I am so thankful for it.

I remembered that a few weeks ago when my brother David was here from Florida, we cleaned out my outdoor shed and inside one of the bins I hadn't looked in for 12 years were my school yearbooks--going back as far as the 8th grade! I showed Kaity pictures of myself (with a ridiculous haircut my mom forced upon me) and some of my best friends all the way through high school. Kaity cracked up when I would point to a picture of fellows I used to have crushes on!

We also played many games of "Tetra Tower" ... only after our first game, we re-invented the rules and made it more interesting to play. We even used a timer to see how quickly we could assemble our towers.

We also had a contest of who could build the most interesting looking building ...

This first one is Kaity's creation ...

This one is mine. It took us awhile to use all our blocks--our towers kept falling down--but we weren't timing our constructions; we were just seeing who could make the most interesting-looking structure. Naturally, Kaity voted that she WON!

And THEN, believe it or not ... Kaity suggested we get the PlayDoh out and mess around with it. So we did!

I had some very OLD cans of PlayDoh as well as about a half dozen brand new ones. We only played with the older PlayDoh as we were "experimenting" on mixing colors. We had so much fun! This is the kind of time I enjoy best with Kaity. I like just sitting at a table doing goofy things and having conversations. I love talking with and listening to Kaity. When I remembered that the next day was Sunday, I told Kaity that Sundays are my favorite day. She asked me what we would be learning about tomorrow, so I briefly told her about King Solomon and his writings in Ecclesiastes. It was a nice conversation. I forgot to tell her that Ecclesiastes was (almost) her Grandpa Pahman's favorite book of the Bible. Well, I can always tell her another time.

We ended up mixing the PlayDoh into three batches that Kaity took home with her in ziplock bags. One mixed into kind of a brownish color; another was a pretty unique blue; and the last was ... ??? I totally forget!

I love you Kaity! Thanks for spending time with me today!

November 8 These Kiddos

Friday:  How on earth is it Friday again already?! Yikes. It's been a long week--mostly because Terry is still struggling to recover from his total knee replacement, and my sister is more and more confused by the day; her dementia is progressing, and it's difficult for her to understand situations that are new or different. Terry is NEVER sick, so this past three weeks have really been unusual for Ruthanne to deal with. Terry is in a lot of pain, due to both of his knees, and Ruthanne has been left alone (because Terry is sleeping) much of the day. I could be of no help to her today because Fridays are dedicated to taking care of a few of my grandkids, and Dylan and Kelly really count on me to come through for them each week (which I am glad to do!).

I picked Young Cal up from his dad at 11:30 and we came over to my house to play. Here are a few snapshots of our time together:

I was thankful that Cal was interested in building a nice layout for our wooden trains today. We worked on it together. I think it turned out very nice. I have to be careful NOT to mess too much with Cal while he is designing his track. He has an idea in his mind and does NOT want to be influenced to change it in any way. I did sneak a few tracks in when he wasn't looking--just so that the track would hook together properly!

Cal is a good little builder, isn't he?

We played trains for awhile, but then wandered back to the toy room and got out our cars.

I think Cal goes beyond the rest of my grandsons in his love of cars--I thought Chris and Matt were crazy about them--but this little guy will play and play and PLAY with them, looking each one over, asking questions about what model or type of vehicle it is, etc. Sometimes I have to kind of "fudge" on the answer because I truly don't know very much about cars.

We brought some of our vehicles out to the train layout and played with them there too.

Cal likes to read this little book about farm animals--it has grooved mazes going from one part of the farm to the next ... Cal loves to do the mazes. We have a very tiny micro-motorcycle that fits perfectly for the "track" and he zooms it around and around ...

We also played in my room for awhile with a set of Duplo blocks, made an interesting little road layout with them and raced micro machines on it. I forgot to take pictures of that. We also watched, "Toy Story," which Cal announced (after it was finished) that he did NOT like one bit!

We needed to be back at Cal's house in time to get Aidan and Erin from the bus stop. Cal fell completely asleep quickly into our drive. I sang praise songs to him which he sang along with me just briefly before nodding off to sleep.

Erin stepped off the school bus wearing this sleeveless little dress today! It was only 58 degrees! I asked her if she was cold and she gave me the most quizzical look! I touched her arms and they were actually WARM. Wow. She must get that from her very warm mom!

I asked Erin to try on her mom's HIGH heels ... Erin told me she does this all the time ... and then told me that they were just "a little too big" for her.

Oh, my!

Aidan requested that I bring them some blank white paper this week because they were "all out", so I brought over a ream of 8.5 x 11 so that they could fold airplanes and make books, etc. Aidan was super pleased. We did end up downstairs in the basement and watched a few episodes of some new "Mario Bros." series. The kids just needed to chill out after school for awhile.

I didn't get to see Brendan today because he and Dylan and headed to Detroit for a basketball tournament through the youth at Holy Trinity. Brendan is on the team this year. I'm so glad for him! I'm so thankful that Dylan and Kelly promote this kind of activity for their kiddos. They have a hoop outside in their driveway, and a few weeks ago I watched Brendan practice taking shots. He's improving quite a bit, AND it looks like he enjoys it (which is most important). 

Love this family.

November 7 Quiet Kaity

Thursday:  My Kaity-Girl does not feel well today but she was still willing to come over to my place in spite of it! Honestly, we did not do anything at all ... other than eat a simple meal together; but I was glad to have her here, resting on my comfortable couch, where I could look at her dear face and love her just the same.

Please fell better soon, Kaity. 

November 1 Beautiful Kiddos

Friday:  I am super behind posting on this very unknown, insignificant photoblog of mine--well, it's very significant for ME, but not for anyone else. It's been an eventful few days, not many photos taken, too much "checking in" on the "news" coverage of the 2024 Presidential election, etc. Oh! And also my printer has broken down, Jesse declared it officially "DEAD" and I had to research, purchase, and have Jesse install a new one (which I haven't yet learned to use--but that's my goal for today).

BUT I have finally uploaded pictures from Friday's time with the kids. 

Cal is faster than lightning to dump various bins out on the playroom floor ... I try to limit him to two bins at a time because otherwise, there is no walking or playing room to be found with all the toys everywhere.

We went from cars to space ships and a bunch of miscellaneous toys to ...

... a more sedentary activity like PlayDoh. Yes! Sitting at a table molding soft PlayDoh is much easier than being up and down on the hard floor.

Young Cal is completely obsessed with making PlayDoh monsters and having them fight to the finish--which usually means our monsters die in a big heap of ... nothingness. But this is very pleasing to this little guy.

We watched three "short" movies (4 minutes each) of the Minions ... but Cal kept asking for a "longer"movie. Instead, we roughed around on my chair with Cal spinning and jumping and cracking up ...

This went on for much longer than I had contemplated ...

But finally it was time to drive back to Cal's house and get the little kids from their bus. They were happy to see us!

These after-school kiddos like to unwind in their basement watching various "shows." I think they are watching "Dino Dex" and found it very interesting. All of these kiddos love dinosaurs.

Look at Aidan inside the Thomas the Train tent!

"Dino Dex" was quite captivating evidently. Everyone just seemed to need to relax a little bit. I hope we didn't watch too many episodes. I was in need of a few minutes to put my feet up as well.

I'm glad these kiddos have a nice playroom to rough around in. They have a great yard, too; but it was a bit chilly outside this afternoon.

Beautiful children--your grandma loves you!