I keep forgetting to bring my camera card to work with the pictures to tell the stories about Auntie BSU and Lil Eleven's visit. During the evenings, my time has been taken preparing for a kids consignment sale (417 items logged... whew!) Now, we're just days from Nanna and Papa's visit... which means I'll be even farther behind. So, some pictureless stories.
Things I didn't know about Lil Eleven
She is bilingual. She speaks both English and Dog. Although, apparently Belle speaks a different dialect than Strider, because he didn't respond appropriately when she said she was sorry to him (head down, butt up... kind of a yoga 'downward dog', which made me wonder whether that's where the yoga term came from).
Nocturnal adventures
Night 1
Lil and Moolah slept on camping mats in Moolah's room. The plan was someone in the bed and someone on the mat. Clearly that plan was developed by grown-ups and ignored toddler law: what one kid has the other one needs (reiterated many times over the visit), so two mats it was. Lil slept closest to Moolah's bed. Auntie BSU had warned me that she often cries in her sleep, and that she probably would not need comforting, she would go back to sleep soon. At about 2 am she started crying, and then it died down a little. Then it ramped up and seemed far more urgent. I went in to check. I looked around. No Lil. I heard her crying. It was dark, I wasn't wearing my glasses. Maybe she got up and was in a corner and didn't know where she was. Quick corner check. No Lil.
"Lil?" I asked
"She's just crying," Moolah said sleepily, and completely without judgment.
"Lil?" I said again
"Stuck," said Lil
She had somehow worked her way under the bed. There's only 4 - 6 inches to get through, but she had gotten all the way in and couldn't get out. I pulled her out and cuddled her, then stuffed some pillows under the bed. I thought of the story of me in the frying pan (Oosje, that's your cue...)
Night 2
We put the girls down together on their camping mats. I turned on the music and the birds, which project on the ceiling, as usual for Moolah. Lil had been asking about the birds all day. It turns out she wanted to know where they were because they were very scary. Who knew? Auntie BSU took her to sleep downstairs. Moolah cried and cried.
"I need something."
"What do you need?"
"I need a cousin!!"
Moolah went downstairs and slept in the guest bed with Lil, relegating Auntie BSU to the futon until sometime in the middle of the night when she decided that she needed the futon and Auntie BSU needed to leave.
Night 3
We tried to "clean" the birds out of the room. We sang "birds, birds, go away, come again another day." We sprayed bird cleaner out of the ironing squirt bottle. The girls lay down.
"Nat nat?" asked Lil. Auntie BSU showed her where her blanet was.
"Where's my nat nat?" asked Moolah. I went and got her one. (Follow-up.. she is still insisting on her nat nat almost every night).
"Sleep," Lil said to her Mama (code for lie down and cuddle with me)
"Sleep," Moolah said to me.
The cleaning didn't take. Auntie BSU and Lil went downstairs.
"Where's my nat nat?" asked Moolah again.
"Sleep." She said to me.
Easter
Mama saved a few books from childhood. Santa Mouse, Free to be You & Me, some personalized "read about me" books, and The Easter Bunny that Overslept. Auntie BSU didn't remember the Easter Bunny book. She did remember "The Little Lamb", which Nanna sent to Moolah. So, we read about the tardy bunny and the misplaced lamb all weekend.
On Sunday morning the bunny made it to our house. There were baskets and eggs for everyone. The bunny was at Edgefield again, where we sawhim last year. Moolah had said that "I used to be scary of Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny but now they are my friends". So, we were going to go to brunch and egg hunt and meet the big furry one. It rained. Lil spiked a temperature of 103. We all stayed in and played.
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1 comment:
I am so enjoying reading these stories about the cousins. It makes me feel like I was there a little to experience them all together.
So here is my "cue-d" story.
Many, Many, Many years ago, when Mama was very tiny (5 months old) Bampa and Uncle Lee and I went fishing. We had a volkswagon bus with a big bed in the back where Mama slept. In anticipation of our big catch we had Uncle Lee's favorite frying pan with us, as well as our other camping utensils. Uncle Lee's pan was gigantic (he thought he was an excellant fisherman) waiting to be put over the camp fire to cook our delicious meal.
The fishing "hole" was actually a plank wedged into the side of a cliff hanging over the Salmon River. The volkswagon bus was parked at the top of the cliff. I would walk back and forth checking up on the fishing progress and Mama sleeping on the bed. (the decor was very British..red, white and blue etc. A kinda-hippie van.
Back and forth, back and forth. I got to the van to check on my little baby and SHE WAS GONE! Now this was in 1971 and the thought of kidnapping had never occured to me far in the wilds of the snowy state. She had never moved before and I did not think that she had moved this time either. Panic set in, what was I going to do???
and there she was...laying in the frying pan.
Rolled off the bed and into the pan. NO crying, just laying there experiencing her new surroundings.
I still cannot express my relief that she was there AND unharmed.
As I recall, no fish were caught and we stopped at the Stanley Store and bought steaks (and cooked them in the pan, of course)
After that, there were lots of barriers on the big bed whenever we went anywhere.
Mama would have said "stuck"too, if she had been able to talk. I wonder what Moolah would have said in the same situation?
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