. . . to be happy about

Lake Erie at Presque Isle: March 29, 2008


Somewhere I have a book with 14,000 reasons. Here are a few (mine and others') from the first ten days of spring
. . .

1. seeing a Great Lake for the very first time
2. finding roses on the doorstep
3. being thrilled to come in ninth
4. negotiating snowdrifts in spring
5. sharing first-week-of-spring birthdays
6. blowing out trick birthday candles
7. circling lighthouses for the best camera angle
8. enjoying rocking chair layovers
9. looking down at cotton candy clouds
10. reading books recommended by grandbabies
11. not being vaporized
12. qualifying for level 10 and regionals
13. surviving hard sudoku challenges
14. earning Webkin points
15. giving and receiving reasons to smile
16. keeping the spirit of break in Spring Break
17. owning a bicycle . . . again
18. planting roses
19. sleeping in late
20. coming home

More to come . . .

kidz in action

Kelsey places 9th on floor at state and qualifies for Level 9 gymnastics regionals (a 7 state event) while

Mason earns RBIs for his allstars baseball team.

1st-week-of-spring birthdays: the third installment

Kodak for Garrett (smile!!!!) . . . and

Justice for Kira Rose (aka the princess)

Turn Garrett's 9 upside down and you'd have Kira's 6.

It took all three grandbabies to extinguish Garrett's trick candles :-)

1st-week-of-spring birthdays--the second installment

These babies know how to help Mama (March 22nd), Daddy, (March 25th), and Nonny (March 26th) celebrate!

bABY, lOOK AT yOU nOW ! ! !

Shhhhh,
don't
tELL
. . .

I'm supposed to be too old for this child's play, me and my brittle bones and out-of-practice self. But, hey, that's why this baby has only one gear and pedalinreverse brakes! I can pool all my mental reserves into remembering how to do what, they say, you never do forget!

Yes, like Campbell, I could forget to watch where I'm going, fall down, break something, learn to write left-handed . . . again! He did , at 7. And I did at 12 (only it was roller skates for me). His cast comes off on Thursday . . . and we're going to, one day soon, ride, ride, ride!

Bet this would make an awesome beach bike . . . Maybe this summer???

Couldn't go for that test bikeride today. . . I was wearing dress shoes and dressy pants and who could bike in that attire? Except my 7-year-old former self, all those birthday years ago, who learned to ride her 26" Huffy in dress shoes and a dressy dress!


Happy Easter!

Happy birthday!

Happy spring!

Thank you Mama and Daddy and Michelle and Rick and Mason and Campbell for touching this child's heart--then and now.

I've got a secret. . .

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Spring slipped in this morning

while we were sleeping.

Tomorrow, Aries!

Birthdays-all-in-a-row.

Pink knockout roses on the doorstep.

Time to breathe it all in.

Spring

break

at last . . .

tell me. . .

Should the boy squish the ant? What do you think, Michael?

Tell me, Nonny.

The kitchen's on fire. William in his bathtub is riding a tidal wave down the stairs. What do you think will happen next, Michael?

Tell me, Nonny.

So much of my life, my work, is about coaching others to tell me what they think.

But this morning, looking into Michael's eyes, I knew that this time it really was all right to tell him what I was thinking. . .

Except for these two questions.

Michael will have to make his own way through the moral minefield of squishing ants, just as grandbabies before him have been invited and expected to.

And, even at not quite four, given enough of a story recap to think with, he was able, this morning, to predict that the tidal wave from the broken faucet upstairs would put out the fire. Which it did, in that picture book world.

But for all those other times this morning , all Michael's other invitations to

Tell me, Nonny,

I did--and very much enjoyed (while I still may) being allowed to--tell.

did you know. . .

that March was once the first month of the calendar year?

Think about it: septem(7)ber, oct(8)ber, novem(9)ber, decem(10)ber . . .

I wouldn't have minded a year or more of no trudging through the minefields of january and february. . .but what might life have been without the january babies, Daddy and Grandmaman Yvonne, and without know-no-fear Mason, february and firstborn grandson?

Maybe I need those reminders that life isn't all about spring, reminders that cause me to appreciate all the more that

TODAY IS THE FIRST DAY OF MARCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!