A Gift for Mommy!

We got the results today of what Maya and her classmates have been making for Mother's Day presents for their Moms.

When I got Maya off the van this afternoon, her driver (Mr. Fred) handed me a little styrofoam cup, filled with dirt and with this nice little -but lonely -one marigold blooming away in it. The cup is all decorated though with "Mom" scribbled around it. Really cute though, I do have to say that.

And I remember how when my kids were little -usually in Sunday School classes though -they would often come home with a little plant of some type or at the very least, a card they had done for me. Ya know, when I think back, those cards with the usual stick drawings and scrawled writing (printing) on them, were the sweetest things though, weren't they?

Maya had a card in her backpack today too that she had made for Mandy. Now this -well it is really comical cute.

The front of the card is a drawing -all done in red -of the good old stick figure that is supposed to represent Mandy and she has printed at the bottom of it, "Momma. Not her best coloring or printing but what the heck, it is the thought that counts, isn't it?

Mandy wasn't home when Maya got home from school and I forgot about the card in the backpack till just after we had finished supper. My older daughter happened to be here too late this afternoon so after Mandy looked at her card and completely cracked up laughing, she passed it over to her sister so Aunt Carrie could see her niece's handiwork too. And Carrie howled laughing as well. About that time, my son floated in to say hello and goodbye (he will be going back to work early-early in the morning therefore, he stopped by tonight for a really quick visit.) Well, Clate saw the card and he joined in the laughter then as well.

The inside of the card consists of a little insert -typed and glued to the inner page and at the top of this insert is typed "About My Mommy."

Then, below that are three things that the child was supposed to fill in about his/her mother.

The first says "Her name is 'Amanda.' (Because the answers to that are filled in on this insert are all very neatly printed in, it is obvious someone on the staff at the school helped with this part of the card.)

The second says "Her favorite food is SOUP. Well, I know Mandy does like soup but I would have thought Maya would have said "Tacos" since that is what I tease Mandy about all the time and always say that it's the only thing Mandy knows how to cook because about everytime she does the cooking for us for supper, that's usually what we have. But apparently Maya thinks her Mom's favorite food is soup so we'll give her a pass on that.

The third though -and this is the one that totally cracked all of us up - is "Mommy always says "Bad girl."

Me thinks Miss Maya maybe had a bit of a guilty conscience today or something to have given that answer there! Not that Mandy doesn't say that to her from time to time but it really isn't what she says to Maya ALL the time.

Although this morning, that may have been something Mandy may have uttered to her because she was a bit on the contrary side before she left for school today.

My son said he stopped by tonight just to say "Hello" and then, "Good bye" before he leaves for work early this morning but I think it was more so that he could show off that he got the transmission fixed -finally -in his 1971 bright canary yellow Chevy pickup truck!

Yesterday, just to show what a fruit-loop my son can be at times, he showed up here at the house driving the above mentioned truck. At first, I thought maybe he had managed to get it up to Bill's garage Monday evening and then, was up there bright and early yesterday a.m. to work on the transmission and they got it fixed -for him to be able to drive it down here anyway. But I was wrong. The transmission was still not fixed when he showed up yesterday.

When that went out on the truck late last fall, the only gear he had that worked then was reverse and I really could not picture him driving from his house on top of the hill here in town clear down to our place, in reverse the whole way -almost a mile -but now I can picture him doing that because that is exactly what he did. And when he left to go home, yes -he was driving in reverse the whole way back up to his place.

There are more times than I would even try to remember when my son has done some really wacky and crazy, zany things but driving that far in reverse -well, that has to be one of his "finer" tricks I guess!

But tonight, when he pulled up out front with that truck, Kurtis heard him coming and ran over to the front window, hopped up on the couch and from there into the bow windowsill and started calling out "Un Qua-on" which translated means simply "Uncle Clayton!" All of a sudden in the past week, Kurtis has been more or less -in his fashion -addressing most of us by name! First, it was when he said "Roxanne" -the name of his new speech therapist. Then last week, we could tell he was trying to say "Roberta" -the name of his occupational therapist but that didn't come out very understandable. He does occasionally refer to Maya as "Ne-ea" and it's really odd because when Maya was first learning to talk and learning to say names, she used to refer to herself as "Ne-ea." Why? I have no idea but both kids seem to think that is how to pronounce Maya. Go figure, huh?

Then it was one night last week when he got himself out of his bed and wandered to the doorway to my room and woke me up about 2 in the morning by loudly calling to me -'GRAMMY!" And now, tonight the name for the day was "Un Qua-on." He tends to omit most consonants in his words so I put the Uncle Clayton here in the way he says it.

And before Uncle Clate left this evening, he even was the recipient of a big, big hug from Kurtis too. Another thing which he usually isn't all that generous in giving those things out, ya know so we were really happy and excited to see him being this social today.

And another milestone for Kurtis -Mandy finally found a sippy cup that he will use! We've been trying for close to a year now to wean him from drinking from a baby bottle to getting him shifted over to a sippy cup and believe you me, it's been a long, hard battle but today, he finally accepted this new sippy cup -with characters from "Shrek" pictured on it. Why this cup now? It seems there is an orange cat pictured on it and he seems to think that is Uncle Clate's cat -Nina -the one who just had a litter of four kittens here two weeks ago.

What ever it takes! That's fine and dandy and we'll gladly take any more little changes that he wants to toss into the mix for us now too!

I finished the sweater I've been working on for Maya yesterday. Well, truthfully, if you go by the picture in the pattern book, it isn't really completed because the finished product is supposed to have a face on the front of the sweater of either a puppy, a kitten or a teddy bear but considering the problems I had tonight trying to figure out how to do "duplicate stitching" of the eyes, nose and mouth for a teddy bear on the knitted pocket that is supposed to go in the middle of the front of the sweater, I'm really glad that Maya had told me yesterday that she thought she preferred the sweater just plain -no embellishment on it!

And boy, does that ever really make me happy cause I can't figure out how to do these facial features for a teddy bear just by judging how many stitches are needed and the placement of those facial features on said pocket also has me more than a bit frustrated.

A diagram of where to put them on the little knitted pocket would really have been a tremendous help, in my opinion.

But that's okay as I really do like it better -just like Maya does too -just a plain ecru bulky crewneck sweater. And although she is wearing size 6 clothes (children's size six, obviously) and that's the size I made this sweater in, it looks more like it would fit a child of the size 8-10 variety much better!

So, provided she doesn't spill tomato sauce of some type or smear chocolate on it -or dribble purple grape joice down the front, this sweater may very well last her for several years, judging by the length of the sleeves anyway!

Now, if I use that pattern to make a sweater for Kurtis, I'll have to remember to use the instructions for a size smallr than he currently is wearing and all will be just fine and dandy!