Nice Afternoon

I had such a nice afternoon today just sitting at my mother's house and visiting with her and my daughter and watching my granddaughters run wild around my mom's house.  Yes, she puts up with it...and says not a word...maybe because they are carefully running and never have broken anything, or maybe because we don't come over enough and she's afraid of making us mad by saying something, which it wouldn't.  Whatever the reason, she sure has a lot of patience. 

There is an old telephone in her formal living room where a lot of breakable things are.  This particular phone isn't hooked up, but it sits beside the couch on the end table.  Every single time we go over, both the girls head into the living room to pick up the phone and pretend they are talking on it.  I know that will be the one thing they will always and forever remember about my mom's house.  Also in the living room, there is a globe....you know, the world globe....the kind that is on a stand that you can spin around and watch As The World Turns....hee..hee....sorry about that....couldn't resist....anyway, they LOVE to stand there and spin that world around and around.  Over in the corner sits a bookcase.  It's a very unimpressive bookcase.....just 5 shelves....not ornate.....but on the bookcase's top two shelves sit little bunnies that my mother has collected.  They are glass or ceramic, and they beckon the girls to come touch....and they haven't broken one yet.  Over on the other end table is a glass cocker spaniel that looks like a cocker spaniel that my mom and dad once had.  They know not to touch this.  Even the baby knows not to touch the dog.

The den holds a leather rocker recliner that was my dad's chair.  All the kids love to lean over the arms of the chair and rock it back and forth, lifting their legs off the ground.  Inevitably, they will scoot across the arm to land belly flop style on the seat.  Then they slide down the foot of the chair onto the floor and back to the arm again.  This is as irresistible to them as the old phone.  You can tell them to stop, but they just cannot help themselves.  They MUST ride that chair.  In front of the chair on the coffee table lays a magnifying glass that my mom uses to read the paper....and usually, there is another on the other end of the coffee table....I don't know why.  Each one of them will pick one up and press their nose and mouth and eyes against the thing so that they look like some kind of weird deformed monster....it's hilarious.  My mom leaned over to me today as they did this and whispered in a laugh, "I just got through cleaning them with Windex from the last time they played with them."  I asked if she wanted me to get the Windex and clean  them again, and she motioned, no, no, no....smiling all the while. 

Back in her bedroom, while we were helping her to look for her mom's necklace that she thought she couldn't find (but she found rather quickly), the girls climbed onto her huge, comfy, high bed and nestled into her pillows, even though the quilt was on the bed.  Her bed was made up to look like a cover for a decorating magazine.  They each held onto one of her stuffed animals, and laid back.  My mom turned on her tv for them to watch, and they got very, very still.....for about 15 minutes, then back up and down the hall they ran. 

After a couple of hours of visiting, it was time to say goodbye....and of course, the girls were sad to go.  They always have so much fun there.  When I got home and was cooking, thinking back on the day, I thought about how much fun I always had at my grandparent's houses.  We always loved going upstairs at my dad's parents, then sitting on our butts and pushing off the top step, delighted to be bumping all the way down to the bottom stair,only to get back up and do it all over again.  At my mom's mom's house, we loved to run around outside and catch lightning bugs, then put them in jars she provided and watch them blink off and on....only to release them again....unless my brother got them and  sometimes he would smash them on the brick to see how it would shine fluorescent green.   Wonderful memories....and my mom has made some wonderful memories for my granddaughters, on top of all the memories my mom and dad made for my daughter.  You're the best, Mommy!