Grandchild Quote for the Day

Before Ann left this morning to do some things at Jakers, I asked Jack where grandma was. "She's in the computer room," he said.

I asked him to ask her if she would come downstairs for a minute. "No, she's focused," he said. We both laughed about that.

Later in the day, he was talking to us while sitting in the car seat in the VW Bug. Jack started telling a story of something he remembered, but he started in an interesting way: "Way back when I was four."

Later he made the statement that something happened"eighteen years ago." He hears things Ann and I say, and then he experiments with words, just like Tommy and Anna do. Each grandchild does it a different way.

Tommy, while getting ready for school, is showing how independent he is. When he gets ready for school and walks to the school bus, he doesn't want anyone taking him by the hand or even standing outside. And the same is true when the bus arrives. He told Lydia not to stand outside at the spot where the bus lets him out in the afternoon, because he walks home with his friends.

Our last day there was sad, because we knew it would be a while before we saw everyone again. The bus arrives, and we stood outside. I wanted to take a movie clip with my cell phone of Tommy getting on the bus. The bus stopped, the door opened, and before I could engage the phone, Tommy disappeared up the four steps to find a seat. And then in my rush to take another picture of the bus leaving, I forgot to save the clip. But I will always remember it.

Ann drove for me, because the wrapping on my feet made it impossible for me to brake or to shift gears. And sometimes in traffic it was easy to take a wrong turn. We became lost more than once, and Ann--like any true Welshman--said "damn."

I hear Anna's voice in the back. "Say dang grandma," she said.