Thumbs Up!

This has been quite the week here -busy, busy -yes and some not so happy moments but a whole lot more that were really great and funny.

This past Monday my week began with a funeral and funeral dinner at our church. A neighbor lady, who lived two doors up the street from my house for almost all of her 83 years here was laid to rest. Her passing marked the end of her family which had been her, her parents and a brother. Good neighbors they all had been too -quiet, unassuming, hard-working people. Rest in peace, Genevieve.

Tuesday was the lunch date for those classmates of mine and I to get together. We have switched the day of the month for our lunches from the last Thursday of the month to the last Tuesday so as to give one of our classmates the opportunity to dine with us.

This month though, things were a tad different.

First off, my grandkids were still on break for Thanksgiving plus the first two days of deer hunting season are always part of that holiday break too and since Mandy had to work that day, I had the honor of taking Maya and Kurtis to the lunch with me. The restaurant where we meet is about 6 miles from my house and the entire drive from the house to the restaurant consisted of Gram giving these two hooligans a lecture on behavior -what they were to do and specifically, what they were NOT to do too. Talking -especially very loud talking -was one of the points of my lecture and Maya did quite well with that but then too, around a group of people (all adults), some who she's never met before, she does tend to clam up and get a bit shy.

Kurtis, on the other hand, talked and talked and talked but at least, he wasn't really loud so that was okay with me. He made up virtually immediately when former classmate, Helen, arrived and definitely provided her with all kinds of questions about everything and anything I think that came to his mind.

He especially likes this particular restaurant for the decor they have all around the place consisting of fish and other marine-type life as well as large and small models of all different kinds of sailing ships too. Normally, he concentrates on "the big puffer fish" they have there but this visit, he spied a few other things too -one of which was a lantern. He made a point of asking Helen loads of questions about the lantern, how it worked, when and where it was needed and so forth.

Then he spied something else on display and asked me "What's that thing up there, Gram?"

Now, I dare you to try to figure out what a six-year-old is pointing at when a question like this pops up.

I asked him what he was pointing at and he kept repeating "That. See it? That, up there!"

"Up where, Kurtis?" as I was trying to figure out exactly what he was asking about and his response then was "Can't you see it? It's right on the tip of my finger where I'm pointing!"

None of us could figure out what had caught his eye, even after we asked him to try to describe it by color or size or did it look like something else, maybe? Finally, he ended up getting up off his chair and walked around to the end of the table and pointed more directly up to it and then, was told it was a turtle and the way it was on this little pedestal, it looked like the turtle was flat but actually, it was just supposed to be a turtle swimming.

He returned to his seat, all happy and excited as he tugged on Helen's arm and told her, "We solved the mystery, Helen. It's a turtle!"


After lunch, I had to drive into town to the bank and from there, out to the diner where Mandy works for a brief stop. Then on to the Sheetz store so I could pick up a copy of the Tuesday paper and from there then, headed back home.

As I pulled out onto Rte 53, the two kids in the back seat were both being quiet, pretty well-behaved but then Maya spoke up saying "Gram. Kurtis just called me a bad name!" Uh oh, here we go!

I told her I hadn't heard him say anything so to keep this little issue of hers going, she says "Well, he whispered it to me." Yeah, right! The last thing in the world that he can do is whisper anything. His version of a stage whisper or even a for real whisper is loud enough that anyone within three feet of him could hear him.

So I asked Kurtis if he had called Maya a name and if so, what had he said. (He is generally very up front and honest and will almost always admit to things regardless of it will land him in hot water or not.

This time though, I could see him in the rearview mirror as he leaned over a bit towards Maya and in the softest voice he could muster up, he told her "I love you, Maya!"

I totally cracked up laughing, pounding on the steering wheel as I drove down the road towards home! What a character he is!

Last evening, after supper, while his TSS -Miss Dawn -was still here, she and I sat at the dining room table and worked with him a bit on his reading and spelling words -trying to prep him a bit for a spelling test he's supposed to have this week. One of the words on his list was the word "thank" and I noticed he had spelled it incorrectly, starting the word with an "f" and not a "th" and I realized he frequently makes the same mistake in pronunciation of the "th" sound. So Dawn and I really pushed him then to say it as "thank" and not as "fank." Finally, he said the word correctly and then repeated it several times for us too.

Feeling I was on a bit of a roll getting him to pronounce the "th" sound, I put my left hand up and pointing to my thumb, I asked him "What's this, Kurtis?"

He immediately responded to my question with a great answer -:"Right!"

Dawn and I both exploded in laughter on that one!

Yes, a thumb's up does signal "Right" doesn't it?

It definitely wasn't the answer I expected but I loved it all the same!