From The Land of The Great Yellow Cheese

Ali with Spot the Dog, Mr. Duck and Thirsty Baby Bear

Greetings from Wisconsin, where the men drink beer and cheese, the women make egg casserole and the children area all good-looking.

Would you believe (in the words of Maxwell Smart) that I started this blog when I actually was in Wisconsin and that I've been back since December 9 in the evening?  Would you believe that when there are two granddaughters to play with that there is NO TIME to make blog posts?  That's a fact.  How their Mama finds time to not only make short posts but also upload 1000s of photos to FLICKR I just don't fathom.  She is Wonder Mother for sure.

I had a wonderful time in the Land of the Great Yellow Cheese, though we didn't actually eat much cheese except as a topping for my son's fabulous chicken enchiladas.  Mostly I spent it playing Mr. Duck and Spot the Dog with my granddaughter Alison.  You haven't heard of that game, you say?  That's because it is an original created by Alison and her Grandma Christine.  It involved a stuffed duck, about 5 inches tall and a very small resin Dalmatian, only 2 inches tall at the most.  The game started with Spot asking Mr. Duck if he could possibly help with the large bones that Spot was trying to move to his doghouse.  The bones (plastic croissants from the kitchen set) were awfully large for the diminutive Spot and so Mr. Duck agreed to help out.  Mr. Duck's back story, as imagined by Grandma C., was that his real name or adopted name, was Arnold Duckinator, after his idol of a similar name.  Mr. Duck (or Duckinator) visited the gym regularly to keep his muscles in tone, therefore making it easy to help Spot whenever necessary.  Mr. Duck also had some kind of Arkansas accent and referred to Spot often as Little Buddy.  This game morphed eventually into a more medical theme, as Ali decided Mr. Duck did construction work for a job and was not very handy with his hammer and nail.  It turned out that whenever Spot helped Mr. Duck by holding his nail (a plastic celery from the kitchen set) the hammer would slip and poor Spot would get a wound on one of his paws.  This necessitated cleaning the wound, ointment, bandaging and medicine.  Poor Spot never learned that each time he held the nail he was in danger, so this "treatment" went on and on, day after day, with the washcloths, ointment, bandaids and medicine becoming more and more elaborate.  There were washcloth, bandaid, ointment and medicine cupboards and patterns for cloths and bandaids (the white with black spots bandaids becoming the clear favorite) and flavors of ointment and medicine that ranged from mixed berry to cinnamon.  Ali never got tired of this game and greeted me each morning and after afternoon naps with, "Can we play?"  Of course, I obliged, and I miss our game now and wonder what Mr. Duck and Spot the Dog are up to since Grandma C is not there to participate.  I preferred this game to the one called Farm School that involved Big Stomping Bear and his cub, Thirsty Baby Bear.  This game was shorter and had Baby Bear losing his hat every time and the search for it and Big Stomping Bear being hungry and demanding food.  It also required that the players be on the floor, not a problem for a 3 1/2 year old but a little challenging for Grandma.  The Duck and Spot game was a couch game--much more comfortable.

There were other things that we did.  My son and I visited Stillwater, Minnesota, just across the river, and a German ornament store that has become a favorite with me.  We discovered a cool coffee shop with used mugs and comfy chairs with blankets for chilly bones.  We did our annual visit to The Real Santa in Mall of American and Ali and I played in the snow in 23 degree weather.  It's amazing how relative temperature is.  23 degrees here in Washington is COLD, but in Wisconsin it's moderate for a December day.  I'd look at the temp and declare, "It's 23 degrees!  Warm!" and we'd prepare to go outside.  I got to be there for Zuzu's first birthday, even though it was a tiny celebration.  The real "kid party" would come after I went home.  Mom make a cake and cut it in half, so that the cake that would be destroyed would be Zuzu's and the rest of it would not have hand prints in it.  All except Mom got colds while I was there.  Daddy was trying to recover from a sinus infection and Zuzu was on cold #3.  Grandma and Ali came down with colds on the same day, one day before I left for home.

The 7 full days I was with my granddaughters went by in a blur.  I so wish they lived closer so that airline tickets and packing suitcases was not involved in a visit, but when you raise your kids to be independent how can you get mad at them for being so?

I am home now, looking at their pictures on Flickr and putting my own there, remembering the softness of young skin, the smell of clean hair, the look in Ali's eyes when her Mom told her Grandma was going home the next day.  She gazed at me for a long time, unblinking, her eyes locked on mine.  I wonder what she was thinking.  I was thinking that I love her beyond words to describe and that I will miss her every day until I see her again.  And I'll miss Mr. Duck and Spot, too.