My Grandpa Rick & Becky were able to sneak down for a visit & we enjoyed spending the past few days with them. I'm always amused while watching Lyla & Max and their persistent methods of convincing people to join their world of pretend. They had Grandpa eating at the restaurant, getting check-ups, and playing multiple rounds of hide and seek. Lyla was also excited to impress him with her simple addition skills & ability to spell her own name. Grandpa has always taken a lot of pride in all of his grand kids and any of their academic related achievements.
Grandpa decided the kids were ready for the true test of will power known as "the feather trick." The object of the game is to lay very still as a feather, or similar tickle device, is lightly pulled across your face. I can still remember fighting the urge to laugh and itch my own face when I was little. I think my kids are pretty lucky for the opportunity to have such fun-loving relationships with their great-grandparents and make similar memories as I made with my grandparents long ago.
We visited not one, but two quilt shops, at the request of the quilt-shop-connoisseur, Becky. In addition to all the quilting, she has also made 162 pillow cases over the past year that have been distributed to children in need all over the globe. That's some serious charity work, I don't know why Grandpa refers to the sewing/quilting obsession as a cult. Haha! I think Grandpa and the kids agreed the quilt shops were a boring experience. Surprisingly, I find browsing at fabric enjoyable, although I don't even sew. Perhaps I should start...however, as warned by Grandpa, membership to the cult is not cheap. Afterwards, Grandpa got ice cream for the kids, which helped them forget all about the torture known as quilt shops.
It's always fun for me to listen to the countless number of stories Grandpa has to share about his own childhood and reflections of being a parent. I become increasingly more intrigued by how the world is perceived through the eyes of the older generation. I can't help but wonder about what daily life was like for people 50+ years ago. I'm grateful my grandpa is still around to answer some of my questions. He claims he is going to work on getting some of his stories on an audio file so we will have them forever, maybe being reminded on my blog of how AWESOME I think that is will help motivate him to get started.
Grandpa, I think you should start with the story about how you got stung by several wasps when you were younger and found an isolated area to wait for your unavoidable death sentence. Spoiler: He survived the attack. He compared that story to one about me, around the same age as Lyla. I had a bladder infection and refused to tell anyone that anything was wrong. Apparently, he could hear me as I sat and cried behind a closed bathroom door, pretending everything was just fine when I came back out. I don't think I've changed much, in that regard. According to Grandpa, it's nothing more than a genetic trait. Haha!
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