Grandma's Laugh Lines

I've been poring over lots and lots of old family photos lately, in preparation for creating a slide show for Daddy's 75th party this coming Sunday.

How good for the soul to flip through old pictures. But it does make me feel a bit weepy looking at some of the people who have passed away before I knew them well.

My Grandma Dauber was one such person. When I was born, my mother got a bad case of phlebitis in her leg. We were living in Baltimore, but Grandma came all the way from Kansas to take care of me for six weeks. Of course I don't remember it, but I am positive that my bond with her formed in those earliest days of my life.

I didn't get to know her until we moved to Kansas when I was in third grade. We lived in Alden, she and Grandpa in Sterling about seven miles away. And though we only lived there two years, my memory bank is full of deposits made by my sweet Christian grandmother. Her sense of humor was infectious. My favorite line of hers: "I love the old hymns. So much of the Bible is based on them. "'

What I remember best were all the times she and I played dolls together in their "fifth wheeler"--a parked metal trailer out back of their little house. Grandma was compassionate and nurturing. She would make sure we wrapped our babies well in blankets, gave them plenty of milk in their bottles (those forever-full toy bottles, remember?) ,and take their temperatures like they were in a hospital or something. I think Grandma always wanted to be a nurse because the babies were always sick, getting sick, or recovering from sickness. She was a worrier in real life and at play, but when she'd say, "Now, Zoanna, let's check your baby's temperature one more time. She still feels warm to me, " I really believed the plastic skin of Baby Wets-a-Lot
did indeed feel fevril . Grandma kept chewable baby aspirin in the trailer for our babies, and once in a while she'd let me take one myself to show Baby it wasn't so bad. (Never did it dawn on me that my babies had no teeth to actually chew their pills with. But, at any rate, I developed a taste for pink chewable baby aspirin early in my childhood. Expensive candy.)

Grandma's hypochondriac and subsequent caregiving tendencies came back to mind as I read a funny one-liner from Barbara Johnson's Humor Me! this morning.

"I've come to realize that most of the things I worry about never
happen--which just proves that worry does work!"

Overstimulus Package

I startled awake at 5 a.m today, with the next two weeks of events on my mind. Since going back to sleep was impossible (but fine, since I turned in at 9:45), I got up and wrote out everything I could think of that I have to do between today and December 6th.

The Events:
Tuesday: Parent/Teacher Conferences

Thursday , Thanksgiving Day--just my little Six Pack here because they like having something on the day, namely turkey (extended local fam are vegetarians)

Friday--pick up Andrea from airport, have her spend night

Sunday the 29th : T'giv w/ Daubers at 1:00, Daddy's party at 5 (Jill's house)

Dec. 5th--Ladies' Christmas Breakfast -- I agreed to decorate a table and make a sausage casserole. Sadly, none of the guests I invited can come this year.

Dec. 6th-- baby shower for Leanne for which I am helping Sarah prepare

For Andrea's arrival, Sarah wants to repaint the bathroom. I predict the Mouse/Cookie syndrome will play out. She'll start by painting, and Paul will add to it by replacing the vanity, sink, and medicine chest, and I'll come along and accessorize and take pictures. (I am NOT supervising a home improvement project in the next 2 weeks!)

For Daddy's party, I've decided to do a slide show of pictures thru the years, getting my sisters and mom to contribute photos. I spent yesterday (while talking with Amy) finding clear surfaces and trashing junk from the office. This morning I started in a shoebox called "Before 1999" finding pictures of my dad. So nice to have clean space to work with and almost all my photos organized, thanks to the oomph I had last summer. I'm also making him a German chocoloate cake, his favorite, or order a chocolate one with white icing one if Jill really wants the top to "say" something rather than have stick-in toppers.

For Thanksgiving here and at Jill's, I am making lots of food. Rolls for the Dauber clan, mostly. They love my homemade dinner rolls.

For the LCB, I have decided on a theme.

For Leann's showers, I'm taking orders from my girl. What goes around, comes around, right?

I have renamed my to-do list "The Overstimulus Package."

A Special Phone Call

We'd been talking about it on and off in a few emails.

We mutually confessed our reticence to initiate phone calls, yet admitted we'll talk the other's ear off once we get started.

We accepted one another's excuses with perfect understanding and agreed that "when it happens, it'll happen."

And today, my friends, it happened.

She called.

A fellow blogger phoned me a few minutes before 11:oo this morning after getting my hopes up in an email. We talked for an hour and a half.

The most pleasant thing about this call was how naturally it flowed. Through blogging as Christian sisters, we kind of knew each other and didn't have to "start from scratch" with awkward small talk. What a blessing, because I love getting into deep conversations quickly.

So thanks, Amy for making the first move. Talking with you today was the highlight of my day. I'll be returning the favor soon.

PS I keep trying to link your name, but Blogger isn't cooperating.