NOELLE NO FEET, HIDE AND SEEK

 Noelle 

Sept. 2022 - almost 3 years old

Pretty as a princess!

Hands held just so!

Only 2 years old,

pink flounces of voile,

Noelle, 3rd child of 4,

"GrammyPam, look.  No feet!"

"Look.  Look at the floor!"

"No feet no more!"

Sitting on the bench in a Subway booth she was showing off her special dress.

Later, she escaped the booth where we were seated for lunch and went to sit by her mother.

With my back to both of them I heard her mother's voice, an ascending more stringent tone with each exclamation, "No, NO, NO, NO, NO!"  I turned quickly to see the problem, wondering if I could help.  

I saw skin.  I saw a bare chest.  I saw a grinning child standing up in her seat, her arm flung in the air with her pretty pink dress hanging off her fingers as her mother valiantly grabbed for everything!  The child gave it a final backwards fling!

Noelle, no feet?

Noelle, no dress!

Dress gone!

****

July 2022 - 2 1/2 years old

We were playing hide and seek.  The other siblings had hid in the hall closet.  Little Noelle and I were It, we were the the ones doing the seeking.  

Little ones can't keep from giving themselves away.  They giggle and snicker and tell each other "Shhhhh".  Sometimes their extremities flail outside the mattress edge or from under curtain hem in excitement.

All of a sudden Noelle, stands stock still.  Not moving.  Listening.

"I hear dem.  I hear a growl!"

And out springs sister and brother arms and legs all akimbo with glee.

Jan.  2022 - 2 years old

Sunday couldn't find Noelle, remember, the kids all rough house together, running down the hall chasing each other, having a tug of war over the baby doll stroller, tossing balls out of the ball pit, and more, but little Noelle, who's only 2, isn't usually among them.  She's doing her own thing.  This time I found her reaching up to the table, she's only eye-high, so how she did this, I don't know -- but from a bowl that her sister left behind  she was dipping a spoon into cereal and dripping milk on the way to her lips, "Yummmmm."

Nov. 2021 - 2 years old

The pictures below are how Noelle's parents and I get pictures of this 2 yr. old.  She will not stand still.  She's gonna be horrible at family photos!  Rusty, her Dad, said, "Here's how you do it.  You hold the camera in one position like you're checking your phone and when she comes around the corner, click."  

Well, here's how I did it.  NOT SO!

Dec.  2020 - 1 year old

Friend Theresa says her little granddaughter likes to dance to Barbara Ann, by the Beach Boys.  So I decided to try it with my own granddaughter.  Noelle was dancing to Barbara Ann, shaking her little booty, but try as I might I could never get her picture.  She teases.  She comes in front of you and smiles and just as you start to click, off she goes!

We'll have to learn to recognize Noelle by her ... and I raise my right little pinky like an aristocrat ... derri -AIR. 

JOHN SHOPPING TSC

 

 TSC Gift Card

Christmas shopping!

The lists, the hunt, the weaving around peoples, the search for clerks, the canned Christmas carols, the cinnamon and pumpkin smells, the gift cards, the reds, oh, the reds!

We were in TSC, Tractor Supply Co., looking for our grown son a winter jacket.  

Unwittingly, we were blessed with a 40% off sale.  I scoured the racks, the high and the low.  We slid hangers back on the central round rack holding black heavy and zippered coats, and maroon fully lined hooded coats.  We browsed through the store's far right section of mens clothing.  Finally, we chose The One.

To the counter.  

Hand over purchase.

Get out payment.

Never mind the man standing behind us.  He's patient.  We're not dawdling. Darling Hubby John turns around then words unbidden escape his lips.  

"Oh, my lands!  What a big ol' dog!  Are they letting Shetland ponies in the store?" 

"How the Grinch Could Steal Christmas!"

"How the Grinch Could Steal Christmas!"

This is a cautionary tale of how not to have a Grinchy Christmas, and we begin with a selfie.  For Christmas do take photos, but don't take that selfie that turns your forearms into ham hocks.  Ham belongs on the dinner table!  

Even dogs can have a Grinchy day if you give him a bad hair cut.  For Christmas, Do Not try a New-Do!  You'll be sporting a Santa hat, too!
 

As the new year approaches, and we're all thinking about Winter Weight,  Don't  eat the cookies!    Let Santa keep the title of The Little Red Fat Man!  You want that special outfit to fit on that special day, right?  As a matter of fact, skip ALL the cookies, "Ho, ho, ho."

Invariably someone will start a fuss, argument, or create discord.  They want attention. Let them have center stage,

 don't engage.  Their Christmas wish will come true.

The turkey bird can handle bread stuffing, but swallowing his own neck?  What the heck?   Remember, take out the giblets!  Oh, and the absorbent pad, too.

And, for a final caution, unless the family is having a ugly sweater contest, matching outfits 

which come from the Sears catalog of the '60s and 70's, are best left there; it's not trendy anymore.

Avoid these mistakes!  

 The Grinch Can't Steal Christmas. 

JACOB AND THE BUS EXCHANGE

 This isn't so much funny as it is clever.  You'll get a kick out of it.

Jacob is short.  Jacob is 3 years old.  Jacob is intelligent.  

There's floor to ceiling book shelves in the family room that hold not only books but DVDs, containers of techno-entertainment accessories like cords & chargers, and yellow Minion banks. There's you-should-dust me pretties, totes of toys, and just lately, Christmas vignettes with red signs, Rudolph, and a yellow school bus.  The vignettes are sitting over 5 feet high, so how Jacob saw that little school bus, I'll never know.

But he did.

He said, "Ipad.  I want."  Ipad is me, he hasn't yet mastered saying GrammyPam.  "I want" was him pointing upwards to the school bus.  

"John, do you care if he plays with your bus ornament?"  It was, after all, a gift from the the administration of the school where he drives bus #24.  He doesn't care.

I hand it to Jacob.

I sit down at the table to finish my hand of Euchre.

Jacob comes to me, and again, points to an ornament.  This time it's Lilly's and he knows it's Lilly's.  Lilly is his older sister and he knows he can't have it.  But it's just too irresistible.  It's a lantern with a handle and a sweet Christmas tree in the center.  Push the top button, it lights up, it sings 3 Christmas songs.   Push the bottom button, a train lights up, and it whistles, "Whoo-hoo-hooooo!"

He hands me the school bus.  Intrigued, I take it.  He points to the hook holding the lantern.  Thinking he wants his school bus to hang there with the rest of them, the train, the car, a hammock, and a snowman, I loop the gold thread over the hook.

He does a little impatient 2-step with his legs, continues to point to the hook, making unhappy noises.

"I want.  I want."

"You want this?"  and I offer him the bus back.

"NO!" he shakes his head vehemently, looking downward.

Out of curiosity, I slide the lantern handle over the hook leaving behind the bus.  I'm thinking maybe he didn't want two ornaments to share the same hook.

BUT, he reaches for the lantern now in my hand.  He double nods his head "yes", takes it, and runs away.

The little minx!  I've been duped.  

He didn't want the bus!  He wanted to exchange a worthy replacement.  It was a clever plan of action!  Thought out and executed!

By George, by golly, I've been had by a 3 year old!

Practice? No, PLAY! (Jayden Drill, Jacob Trot)

 It was a full house!  The grandkids came to rehearse songs for the children's church Christmas program. At least that's what the adults thought.  The kids?  Their little minds screamed, "Let's play!"

"Let's run and jump."  Run down the hall, ravage the toys in the back bedroom.  Jump on the couch and off the couch.  The cushions falling off the couch, too!  They went to the back bedroom where the toys are.  Full of grins of discovery, Jayden struggled back to the family room with the two toddler-tall elves I'd hid behind the door, and a curtain.  There were smiles on ALL faces, even the elves were impish.

The dads sat at the kitchen table with their hamburger sandwiches.  The mom's were busy fixing said hamburgers.  And giving in to kid wishes for water.  Then comes in uncle.  Tickle fest time, "How many ribs do you have, Alayna?"  Giggle, squirm, kick, laugh.

To add to house fullness, Ian and girlfriend Nikki popped in to work on the outdoor wood project we'd been doing all fall.  It's about completed, yay!

We practiced "The B-I-B-L-E" with sign language, and "Prince of Peace".  Jacob, too young at 3 years old to do it with them, practiced his trotting interference.  Between the teaching parents and the practicing elementary kids he pranced and trotted, back and forth, like a toy wooden soldier without a major!

After a bit of patience on my part, I said to his dad, "Clinton, you need to come get this boy."  Well, lo and behold, little Jacob put two and two together, lickety-split, got up on the couch, sat next to me, arms stiff at his sides, and put on an innocent face.  I laughed so hard!

They were set free.  Then they saw the adults eating.  They tasted bits of my hamburger.  My thing is, "Try it.  If you don't like it, you can go spit it in the trash can."  Jayden wanted pickles.  Jayden loves fried pickles.  Lilly saw Jayden.  She wanted a bowl of pickles like him and Alayna.  Whoops, her first one came out into the trash can, that was the end of that bowlful.  John said, "Tastebuds prevailed over peer pressure."

They ran into the garage to see what Ian was drilling.  Well, all three men were out there now, and there were three drills, but there were also three kids.  Who got the drills?  The kids.

Alayna had a drill to make a pilot hole, she didn't have enough pressure so Clint put one finger on top of the drill to encourage it to go deeper.  

Jayden was on the floor drilling where Ian had told him to put the next screw.  He'd never drilled before.  He didn't know about the upcoming vibration in his hands.  He giggled.  He looked up at me proudly, all excited, "That tickled.  I did it."  Turned to Ian, "Can I do another?"

Wanting to be like Jayden and Alayna, Lilly was at the other end of the board that was laying across the table, asking for a drill, so I got her one but it had a Phillips head on it.  So, while she wasn't looking, I poked it into a pre-existing hole and told her to pull the trigger.  When her dad, Clint, looked back around at her, he was impressed, "You drilled that big hole with a screwdriver tip????  Wow, Lilly!"

Shhh, we tell no secrets, we tell no lies!  

We're all in discovery mode.  They discover adult things.  We discover new joys.

We stay at play, easily, when it's a full house!

"I Can Climb HALF the Tree"

Speaking to me as they released their seat belts to open the truck doors,  says preschooler Alayna, "You're not like Dad."

First grader Jayden concurs, "You're not like Mom."

Alayna states, "You're a nice grandma."

And Jayden adds, "You're the best GrammyPam."

When we got to my house, they stripped jackets, shoes & socks, then inspected the Christmas village while standing on footstools to get a good look.  Jayden points out that Santa in the Christmas train on the toy shelf doesn't have any feet, and Alayna drags the doll in a white fur trimmed red cape by its hat's cotton knob.  

A bit later, Jayden asks, "Can I go outside?  I wanna climb the tree.   Climb to the top."

I answered, "I don't think so.  You should wait until an adult goes out there with you."

As I looked at this slight kid, I wondered about his knowledge, "Do you know what an adult is?  It's someone like me, grandpa, or your mom or dad, or even Aunt Mary Ann."

Grandpa John, low-pitched and quiet, succinctly inserts, "A grown-up."

A child Jayden's age can lawyer personify.  Any point can be argued in their favor,  "I can climb half the tree.  The first branch.  You know, right there."  And he points to the bole.

I continued, "Okay, but you know we're not there to help you, we want to finish up here at the table first.  I want you to understand what we're saying that there wouldn't be anyone there if you fall....maybe get a concussion, or go into a coma...to call 911.  That's why I'm saying these things."

Grandpa John, low-pitched and quiet, succinctly, inserts, "Black out."

They disappear, putting on the mismatched socks they came with, then don shoes and jackets.  Door jangles open, the bells attached to the handle swing as they burst forth.  Alayna runs to the tree swing, and Jayden disappears out of sight. 

It wasn't but seconds later the boy comes back.  He's dressed in oversized black leather jacket that emphasizes his smallness and youth.  It doesn't help that it's streaked with white dirt.

Jayden, unhappy with the turn of events, defeatedly says, "I couldn't do it."

He demonstrates with his cowboy boot how it doesn't gain traction on my kitchen wall.   He concludes the whole thing, "It's a slippery challenge."