A Little Review

I've been thinking about this lately and realized it's been some time since I posted any pictures of the kids -aside from those the other night after my older grandson's band concert. And, with that in mind, I thought I'd share a couple pics of the kids tonight then.

Here then is one of Maya, taken back towards the end of April. It was early in the morning and is her, all ready to head out to school for the day. I just love this little outfit -she looks so darned cute in those green stripe stretchy pants with the matching green shirt to go with it. (She is, by the way, quite the fashion conscious little lady too. Very much like her Aunt Carrie in that respect.)
When Maya was about 9-10 months old, a cousin of mine sent her a gift via her sister, who brought it to Maya at our family reunion that year. It was actually a pillow case (or could be used as a pajama bag too -whatever) and it was in the form of a really pretty, very, very soft plushy white bunny with the biggest and floppies ears ever. Maya loved it, played with it a lot in her playpen, often snuggled up with it -along with her special yellow hand-crocheted blanket that she still often needs to take with her - to bed.

When Maya was about 20 months old, Mandy and Maya and I had taken a weekend trip down to Burke, Virginia where cousin Bea and her mother, Grandma Ruthie, live. While there, we went over to Silver Spring and met up with Bea's sister, brother-in-law and nephew (Rita, David and Jonathon) at the IKEA store there. Along with having a really great lunch there and having lots of fun looking at all the displays, Mandy found another pillow type item and bought it for Maya. This one is sort of a bear -has a bear's face on the pillow part in the center and is shaggy-furry. Maya also liked it a lot too. But both of these items are part of the things that Kurtis also loves. He will snuggle up to the bunny at times but the bear -well it has become a very important part of his belongings! He will carry it around the house, along with his bottle, looking for a good spot to plop the bear down and then, he sits in front of it and gradually lowers his head onto the bear's head for his special comfort zone when polishing off a bottle. (If he's in the playpen, he will go through this same procedure of having the bear in a specific position and then, he lays down with his head just very slightly elevated with the pillow portion of the bear's body.

But there is something else he likes to do with the bear pillow toy too! It's become his "security" toy and as such, when he is trying to calm himself, getting ready to go to sleep sometimes, he will sit in the playpen, hold the bear and then -just like monkeys "groom" each other, he will finger the fur on the bear, sort of one strand at a time. We call this process "Kurtis counting the bear's furs." Here below is a picture of him doing that with his special bear.


Here's Maya in her version of how to best apply makeup. Yes, she's still quite the little artist.
And here's some of her fairly recent art work in the living room too. New designs on the cushions of the loveseat ala Maya. Aren't these just lovely though?

This one below was taken this past Sunday -when I was going to take the two kids for a walk at Mandy's request. Actually, she offered me $5.00 if I would take them both for a walk -together -to get them out of her hair, away from her feet and so they would stop badgering her, fighting with each other and then, bawling while she was trying to clean the living room!

This afternoon, when Maya got home from school, Mandy had made plans to take her down to Milesburg to meet up with "Aunt Carrie" (my older daughter) and Maya is spending the night tonight then with Aunt Carrie and Uncle Robert. Being the sweet people we are, Mandy and I were encouraging Maya's singing on the way down there, having her sing as many of the little songs she knows so that she will be well-versed in them and can sing them for Uncle Robert especially, tonight. (Uncle Robert is just a tad on the OCD side at times and having a mouthy four-year-old for roughly 24 hours is liable to send him fully over the edge.)

But anyway, here's Miss Maya ready to hop out of my van and go over to get into Aunt Carrie's Vehicle. In the background, you can see a little of Kurtis being carried around the parking lot there at McDonald's. During the ride down there, Maya had on a lavendar fleece type ski cap and matching finger gloves too -same deal as last night when we had to go into Philipsburg to the CVS pharmacy there and she had insisted on wearing the hat and gloves. Hotter than Hades and she comes dressed practically for winter but in the winter, it's like pulling teeth to get a hat and gloves on her and keep them there! Go figure! But evidently by the time we got to Milesburg today, she had decided that the weather was much more conducive to wearing this little springy number instead of the fleece. Wise choice, my dear!

Here's Kurtis, getting a little extra spoiling and attention too this afternoon from Aunt Carrie.

Mandy picked up a happy meal at McDonald's for the kids and sent her off with hers when she left with Aunt Carrie. We had decided we were going to stop over at the Plaza (the truckstop restaurant there where I used to work) and take advantage of their Friday night buffet -with the salad bar, fish, shrimp, scallops, baked chicken breasts, stuffed cabbage rolls and the Plaza's really good, lip-smacking BBQ ribs! Mandy got the happy meal for Kurtis though figuring it contained items she knew he would eat without too much ruckus.

Well, you know those happy meals all come with a little toy of some type or other -usually representing a character from some recent Disney movie or some such. The toy in his happy meal today is some kind of little mouse-like figure holding something -maybe a large flashlight or a weapon of some sort -and of course, you wind it up and it runs across the surface. So, after we were finished eating, Mandy got this toy out and decided to spring it on Kurtis to see how he would react to it. Unfortunately, I wasn't quick enough with my flash to get a shot of the toy and I probably really should have thought to use the video feature on the camera which would have shown Kurtis looking off in space, kind of dreamily, until Mandy set this mouse thing down on the booth top and his little head swiveled around just like he was in "The Exorcist" or something! He let out a shriek like a little banshee and in the picture, you can see his arm is extended -actually it was flailing about, giving Mandy a very strong message to get that damned thing away from him. If I'd caught the toy on the picture too I would have labeled this shot as "Get thee behind me, Satan!" cause that was pretty much what he really wanted done with that little sucker, ya know!

So there you have it - pretty much up-to-the minute pictures -well, some of 'em anyway -of my two little grandkids here. They're both a couple of cuties for sure, but both of them can be more than a little tempermental at times too!

At the restaurant tonight, shortly after we started eating, two couples came in and sat in the booth behind us. Kurtis was making a lot of noise at the time but not fussing, just his genial side showing through doing a lot of babbling. Mandy saw the one lady look over at Kurtis as he was squealing over something and Mandy apologized to her for the extra noise from him. THe lady was quite gracious, telling Mandy it was fine and was also obvious that he was having a very good time too. Which, at that time, he was.

However, by the time we were ready to leave, he was really READY to leave! Not a very happy camper by then and his fussing -also at a higher decibel level -was more than noticable. As we walked past these two couples I leaned down to the one lady and said "Well, you've seen both sides of him now - the Dr. Jeckyl and also, Mr. Hyde." To which the lady and her friends all just laughed. By the time we got him moving towards the door, he had settled down quite well though!

Just another episode in dealing with a two-year-old autistic child who doesn't talk and who has very little by way of communication skills. And you all know too don't you, I wouldn't trade him for all the tea in China -nor his sister either! Both of 'em are just "Gram's babies!"

Peace.