A Visit Home

So I went home for the weekend, and anyone who knows me knows I always come back with stories about the little ones -- my four year old niece and six month old nephew.

My grandmother's older sister passed away in January and her only son lives quite a distance away, so he asked if someone would be willing to live in the house to take care of it for awhile until he decides what he wants to do with it. So last month, my sister and her little girl moved in. Living in an old house that has belonged to a woman in her 90s for decades has had its interesting moments. One such moment occurred this weekend.

My sister had found a box in the closet that had been mailed to our great-aunt but never opened. On it was a post-it note saying "Do not open. Return to sender." Since she's now been gone for a couple of months, my sister questioned what to do with the box. We had no idea what might be in it nor why she wanted it returned. Finally my sister decided to just open the box. "I might want whatever it is!" she declared. And so she opened it, only to discover a very useful item -- a package of adult diapers. :)

My niece immediately took the letter off the box and walked off with it. When she returned, we discovered she had written all over it. On one side of the envelope, she had written her name in the upper left corner, and MELEMEN in the middle. The other side read: "THK YU FR G US OER MEL. LOVE, (her name)"

Translation for those not accustomed to reading children's spelling: Thank you for giving us our mail. Melemen is mailman, of course. We were so impressed. Keep in mind this child is only four years old, and has NOT been formally taught to read or spell at all. She's always asking questions, "How do you spell..." "What sound does this letter make?" "What letter makes this sound?" etc. and of course we answer and play little games with her off and on for fun, like, "What letter does cat start with?" or "Can you think of words that start with M?" but we've never sat down with her and actually worked on teaching her to read or write. So there is Little Girl Story #1.

Little Girl Story #2. This is very sweet. Several members of the extended family were at my grandmother's house, and Baby Boy started crying. His mother took him into the next room to try and settle him down. Little Girl wandered in there too, but as we were all conversing, we didn't even notice, until she returned and announced, "Okay, everybody, I got him settled down." How we laughed. :) When asked how she settled him down, she said matter-of-factly, "I sang him a lullaby."

"Sing it to us," my aunt said, and Little Girl sang the following to the tune of Brahm's Lullaby so sweetly. I used initials (Baby Boy and Little Girl) where she sang names.

"Lullaby, and good night,
Go to sleep little BB,
LG loves you, yes she does,
You were sent from heaven above.
Go to sleep, go to sleep,
LG loves you so much."

Now does it get much sweeter than that?

So Little Girl is as sweet and clever as always, and Baby Boy is now sitting up and attempting to crawl by laying on his tummy, then lifting his belly up with only his hands and toes on the ground, almost like he's doing pushups. :) He actually is able to scoot himself forward a few inches doing this. No small feat, considering this is now a TWENTY pound baby!!!!!!! Amazingly enough, he refuses to eat food. They've tried most babies' favorites -- butternut squash, carrots, bananas, but he just spits it out -- yuck! Only milk for this baby!