I’ve just returned home from seven nights with Amy, Darryl,
and Amelia. This was a trip that I did
by myself mainly because Bubba just doesn’t want to be gone that long and
especially to the big city. I did great
driving up there, traveling around in the city and driving back. I have discovered that I just can’t drive at
night no matter how much I wish that I could.
I drove up on a Thursday to attend Amelia’s Drama Club’s
performance of some of the poems by Shel Silverstein in “Where the Sidewalk
Ends.” It was very well done (as usual
at her school) and the kids seemed to enjoy doing it. I drove to the school from Amy’s house to
meet them for the performance with no problem, but after dinner trying to drive
home in the dark was a horrendous experience.
I am so glad Amelia wasn’t in the car with me. Lesson learned.
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| Example of My Night Vision |
Friday morning Amelia came in to see me as she left for
school. At 9:30 I was back at school to
watch another performance of her play. I
was glad I went for the second time because I got a front row seat. She smiled big every time she looked my
way. Lunch was with Cousin Vicky at an Italian deli. Yes, I had pizza and it was delicious!
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| Amelia and Nana |
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| What's In The Bag" |
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| Where the Sidewalk Ends |
Amy and I enjoyed some mother/daughter time Friday
evening. Amy had reserved tickets for us
to see the musical version of “The Bridges of Madison County” and we had dinner
together before the performance. We took
so long with dinner that we barely arrived at the theater on time. In fact, all four levels of the parking
garage were full and we circled the block several times before we decided to
take a chance on being towed and parked in a bank parking lot which was pretty
close to the entrance. Thank
goodness! Because it was COLD! We both enjoyed the musical and the time
together.
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| Intermission |
Amelia needed new clothes for spring so we spent our time
Saturday at an outlet mall after having breakfast at Steak and Shake. Once Amelia tried on all the outfits selected
for her, we went to the playground where she enjoyed playing and hanging upside
down on the monkey bars. It was still
cold but it didn’t seem to bother her.
Amy had time to do a little shopping for herself. Afterwards we had a late lunch at a Varsity
location near the mall. The old Varsity
Drive-In that I went to as a child is still up and running, but this new
location had the same delicious chili dogs and onion rings that I remembered.
Amelia was out of
school on Monday. She and I did a little
grocery shopping and looked for a plant to put in the flower pot that she was
going to paint when we returned home. It
was still cold and it was very cold outside at Home Depot deciding between a
yellow or an orange marigold. We also
went to Michael’s where Amelia picked out a couple of charms with a fairy theme
for a necklace I’m going to have made for her.
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| Painting a Flower Pot |
The rest of the day was spent around the house. Amelia painted her flower pot and
played. When the time came, she “made”
brownies for our dessert that night and her special corn muffins to go with
dinner. She went for her piano/voice
lesson that evening and returned excited because she was going to be working on
two new songs to sing.
The Spring Arts Festival was Tuesday evening. Amelia kept taunting us that she had a big
surprise. In fact, she had been telling
her parents for over a week that there was going to be a surprise in the
program. (Let me add here that it could
have been anything. She was excited when
she got to hold one of the stars on the American flag in a prior performance.) Amy picked me up at the house and then we
went back to the school to get Amelia so she could change clothes. When we picked up Amelia, Amy realized that
she had worn boots to school instead of the black shoes she was supposed to
wear with her chorus uniform. She
quickly contacted Darryl to go by and pick them up which caused him to miss the
piano recital portion of the program.
Amelia did great with her piano piece.
Afterwards she went to the cafeteria where tables were set up for
students to make different crafts. We
looked at all the art on display in the hallways and then it was time for the
program by the chorus. The chorus is
made up of 225 students grades 2 – 5, with 77 of that number being boys. The director really does a great job with them. Can you imagine working with that many kids
at one time? Anyway it turned out that the
surprise was a really good one – Amelia was picked to sing with several others
in front of the microphone some of the verses in a song they did. She had to “audition” to get to sing the
special part. We were all proud of her
and very surprised that she could keep a secret like that to herself.
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| She's Building Something. |
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| The Big Surprise |
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| Proud of Her Artwork! |
Amelia is talking a lot about fairies these days. I don’t know where this is coming from, but
she wanted us to plant a secret garden while I was there for the fairies. (It was way too cold to even try to
accomplish that.) She came in one
morning before school and said, “Nana, I’m so sad.” Of course I asked her why. “Well, I have a twin who is a fairy and she
looks just like me. After I went to bed
last night, I turned on the light and tore a page out of my journal and wrote
her a letter.” She showed me the letter,
a little folded page from her journal and she had told the fairy a little about
herself and what she liked to do. “I’m
sad because she didn’t write me back.”
Later she showed me a shoebox beside the bed that had a couple of
smaller boxes in it (don’t know why) and this was where she was leaving letters
for the fairy. I got a chance to tell
Amy about it and I know that after I got home I got a text from her asking the
whereabouts of the fairy letter.
I guess I’m relating this because in some ways Amelia is
growing up so fast. She doesn’t care
about dolls and dressing up like a princess anymore. She seems to have grown more every time I see
her, but it was sweet to see her sharing her childlike belief in a twin fairy
who will answer her letters. 💖
Note: Amelia still calls me "My Nana" a lot. For example, "I love cooking with you, My Nana." I love that and always have. I hope she doesn't grow out of that. 💖💖💖
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