Random Snapshots from MorMor’s Visit

MorMor was visiting all of last week. Which was great fun. And then she left. Which was greatly depressing. Having her come and go is always a mixed bag– it is always so exciting and wonderful when she comes, and it always throws off our routine and puts us off-kilter in a big way; it is always a huge help to have her here (she is sooooooo helpful), and it always makes us feel even more “on our own” when she leaves us again; it is always awesome to have her visit, and it is always good to get back to being “just us” too. It is all of that and more all wrapped up together. At the end of it all, though, it always takes me/us a few days to recover and bounce back after she’s left. And so, now, four days after her departure, I’m finally sitting down to blog about our week with her. Here is a random selection of some of the highlights of MorMor’s visit:

MorMor taught me needle felting! She brought all of her supplies and we spent almost all day Friday needle felting together while the boys were at school and Meera played. It was my first time needle felting and I absolutely loved it! At one point my mom and I looked over to find Meera totally mimicking our needle-felting-behavior. She had no idea what she was doing, or why she was doing it, but she was doing what she saw us doing— she had found a wooden shish-ka-bob stick and was “needle felting” with it and a pile of wool felt. I’m sure this is one of those moments where, really, ‘you just had to be there’… but it was so striking to see Meera mimicking us this way. So, for a while there, we were three generations needle felting together. My mom and I made three little needle felted toys for Meera that day. We made Meera, Meera’s lovey Bunny Bun (both made my mom), and Meera’s best friend Jewel (made by me). This little trio is Meera’s new favorite things to play with. She’s been playing with them every day since we made them for her.

My mom’s visit just happened to fall over the week before Valentines Day. Cue Hallelujah Chorus. THANK GOD she was here to help me get through that week-‘o-crafting with my twin-six-year-old-super-non-crafty-boys. Oh. My. Word. We had to get K & O to each make four different days worth of hand-made “Secret Pal” V-Day gifts for school, PLUS the Valentines for their classmates. Stuff like this is tough with a non-crafty kid…  double tough with two of them. Anyhoooo….. my mama was here to help and I love her for that. She even pulled out my sewing machine (which, by the way, only she knows how to operate, and which only comes out when she’s visiting) to help the boys whip up beautiful over-the-shoulder fabric bags for their Secret Pals. Amazing, I tell you! What would I have done without her???

For one thing, without her the V-Day bracelets for the kindergarten classmates would not have been possible. That’s FOR SURE. (we barely got through them even with her here). But in the end? We sure did pull off some nice V-Day gifts that the boys were very proud and happy to give away.

   

And a lot of more “normal” stuff happened while MorMor was here too. Like a Saturday playdate she got to witness with three of K & O’s friends. For a mid-playdate-break, they made Playdate Popcorn and drank Juicy Juice through crazy straws. I caught them doing “cheers” “just like a bunch of grown-ups” (their words, not mine), and luckily grabbed the camera just in time to snap this:

MorMor was also here for a weekend basketball game at Lehigh. It was a women’s game, and my goal was to try to get Meera to notice that girls can be basketball players too (not just cheerleaders). K & O just love basketball. Period. So it doesn’t matter to them whether the players are male or female. But the choice of a women’s game was very purposeful as far as I was concerned. I worked hard to do everything in my power to have it register with my daughter: GIRLS CAN PLAY BASKETBALL TOO. Look at the girls playing on the court, not just cheering on the side of it. But she barely took her eyes off the cheerleaders the entire time, seemed to not notice that females were on the actual court, and shook the pink (breast cancer awareness) pom-poms they were handing out that night with gusto, pretending –obviously— to be a cheerleader (they handed out pink basketballs too—and Meera got one—but she quickly asked me to “put it in my bag” so that she could focus her attention solely on those pom-poms). Toward the end of the game, when Meera said to me, “Mama, you paint my fingernails purple tomorrow, just like those girls” (pointing to the cheerleaders), I realized that none of my hard work was paying off and that she was entirely oblivious to the female basketball players despite my best efforts. Whatever. Luckily I had my mom there with me, who helps me laugh these things off. It is just a passing phase, right? My mom thinks NOT (and cannot get over that her daughter’s daughter is such a princess). But I’m still hopeful that Meera will eventually embrace more than just the cheerleading alone in the years to come.

MorFar was there for the ‘bookend’ days – the first day of MorMor’s visit, and the last day (he had a work trip in Pennsylvania that he was off at during her stay with us). But of course, while he was here, we made the most of it. And for his sake it is probably best to just take the bambinos in small doses anyway, because they make him do stuff like this when he’s around:

There were lots of other things too. Like a great dinner at Carrabbas (thanks MorMor!), some good mother-daughter bonding time, and lots of MorMor’s baked goods to keep her grandsons the happiest grandsons on earth. Oh! And the biggest highlight: MorMor gave Meera her first haircut!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was great to have her here. We all make the most of the situation, but we also just can’t help but wish we weren’t such a distance from MorMor and MorFar.