Grandma Honey: 7/1/21

Look who got married this week!

Hard to believe this little girl....

Logan, Laurynn, Amy

grew up,

and just 10 months ago was going through this...

But this past week, was so blessed to do this....

Congratulations Laurynn and Hayden!

Her sister Macie on one side, and her cousin Brooke on the other.

So sweet that a memory table was set up at the reception, honoring two very special girls who sadly passed away not too long ago. Laurynn's cousin... and Hayden's sister.

Thank you Robin for texting it to me.

I wish I had one of these years ago.

I like to read a little in the sun each day, but I often can't because the bees come along and bother me.

Until I saw this little fan attached to a stroller to keep the baby cool.

And I thought, why not.

It works so nicely to keep all flying bugs away.

And then today I learned that if you set a frozen bottle of water in

front of a fan, you will get not just air, but cold air.

I'll try that tomorrow.

But for now, do you see anything odd about the instructions that

came with my little fan?

This reminds me of a shirt my sister recently bought online...

The day that was...

So it started out as a sweet, nice morning, with this going on basically....

Then Tyler gave me the news that someone prominent in his past, very unexpectedly took his own life. I could not help but think of his wife and children.

I also thought how much this man must have suffered, and probably for a very long time.

Something like that makes us pause.

**********

But I had to get my act together since Den and I had a zoom appt at noon with Bernie our attorney. To go over our end of life health care.

So we escaped into the back bedroom where it's quiet, although we could still hear the grands playing up and down the hallway. Their sweet little noises brought calm to my soul that morning. The attorney seemed to like those noises as well. Or maybe he was just being polite.

About 45 minutes into talking about our deaths, basically, and what we want and what we don't want, up flies across our computer screen a message from McKenna, "Will you call me when you can? It's about Jack."

That alarmed me a bit, but we had 15 minutes left to go so I tried to stay focused.

Then just a couple minutes later another message comes across the screen, "Jack is being admitted to the hospital. Call us when you can."

What?! What happened? Jack is only 20 months old.

I almost told Bernie the attorney, I gotta go, something happened to our grandbaby, but we were obligated to finish our meeting.

I had no idea what was going on.

The last 15 min of our meeting was a blur.

As soon as we said goodbye to Bernie, I couldn't dial McKenna fast enough. Turns out Jack's doctor discovered both his blood pressure and cortisol were too low. They wanted him brought to the pediatric wing of the hospital.

Hearing Jack talk from the back seat of the car was sweet music to me at that moment. Both McKay and McKenna said he was acting fine which was very encouraging.

(I think this was a surprise picture taken by one of Jack and Grant's sisters.)

Jack has had many ups and downs with his health since that day, but so far, the past few days he's doing very well.

**********

Then an hour or so later, Violet went through her own episode that I wrote about here.

**********

Soon it was dinner time and Karen and Tyler were off to have Mexican food with Amy and Logan and the twins...while Den and I ate whatever, I don't even remember.

Less than 2 hours later, Karen and Tyler returned came back, and as I greeted them at the door, Karen said, "I have some bad news."

She proceeded to tell us that less than 5 minutes after Amy dropped Jonas off at a youth activity, he seemed to have broken his arm. So after their Mexican dinner they took Jonas to ER.

Turned out he broke his ulna and his radius.

Poor Jonas. But he's recovering well.

**********

Finally bedtime came, and just before going to bed, Juliet came out wiggling her tooth and announced excitedly as only a 5 year old can do, "My tooth is loose! My tooth is loose! It's almost going to come out! I don't know if it will come out in California or Idaho."

That's when I surprised myself by saying to her, "Just keep it in. Keep it in! Wait till you get to Idaho!

I'd never heard anything bad happening from a loose tooth, but on that particular day, I didn't want to chance it. "Save it for Idaho!"

And she did!

A note to my sons and daughters in law...Just to be sure, I want you to know that I consider it a privilege and honor to be included in your lives. I don't care if it's in the middle of the night, or what I'm involved in, I always want to know how you all are, good times and hard times. Until I was a Mom I wouldn't have completely understood all this. It doesn't go away when you grow up and leave home. There are only more to love and worry about. Worry is part of love, and worry leads to prayer. Thank you for sharing your lives with us. Please don't stop!

She had a little incident

To a 10 year old little girl, getting a splinter in her foot is a big deal

It reminded Violet of the other times it happened.

And how it hurt to get it taken out.

So I suggested she just lie on the couch and

watch a movie with her Idaho cousins.

Violet thought that was a lovely idea.

(And Grandmas are not about anything painful.)

Cousin Juliet sat by her side, her little support person.

Meanwhile I texted Violet's parents to let them know.

Her Dad insisted on coming over and taking care of it.

But Violet did not want that, I told him.

He said, Mom, I have to get it out.

And so he arrived.

He said, "Violet I need your foot.

I've got to get the splinter out."

She said, "NO, I don't want that. I'm too scared."

All the cousins gathered around reverently watching.

They all had sad looks on their faces.

They understood the dilemma.

Poor Violet, they all thought.

I could tell all they thought that.

"Please give me your foot, Violet.

If I don't take that splinter out, it will get infected.

You need to be brave."

"But I'm too scared."

"That's okay to be scared. You can be scared and also brave."

She pleaded, NO.

Her Dad patiently waited for her to make the right decision.

I asked if she would like us to pray.

She said yes, so we all prayed for her.

Daddy, Grandma Honey, Aunt Karen, and her 4 Idaho cousins

She finally handed over her foot.

I told her I just read an article that if people smile or grimace

while getting a shot, it will hurt less.

Violet decided to be brave.

Cousin Juliet put her purse down, and held her hand.

I think it was the first time I saw Juliet

put her purse down the whole week.

Daddy worked hard and it was soon OUT.

He was so proud of his brave little girl.

Violet said she smiled while Daddy worked on her.

And she also pretended in her mind she was at the beach.

I told her she meditated.

You can't see her cousins across the room but they were all happy

again, but still very reverent. And in awe.

Juliet was especially happy for her.

She put her purse back on her shoulder now that the crisis had passed.

And they hugged with the purse between them.

Some times the hard things in life are best when your cousins are

watching, and feeling your pain right along with you.

Our sweet literal 5 year old

I have a little story to tell. So I was in the kitchen hurriedly making breakfast (I was hungry!) Juliet (age 5) was near by in the toy kitchen with the plastic "food."

Our conversation went like this:

Juliet: I'm making you breakfast Grandma Honey. Do you like waffles? (I could hear the clanging of the toy food.)

Me: Sure (as I'm stirring my oatmeal)

Juliet: I only have enough butter for one waffle, so can you eat one without butter?

Me: Sure

Juliet: How about eggs. Do you like eggs?

Me: Great, yes, I love eggs

Juliet: Would you like toast or a bagel?

Me: How about both?

Juliet: Okay you can have both. Do you want syrup on your waffles?

Me: Uh, no, I don't like syrup.

Then not wanting to be uncooperative I said: