Grandkids

My dad's mind has been all over the place lately. Last week one day he thought we were on  train and kept yelling out the names of the stations -  they were towns close to his place of birth. This week he is more lucid. And even though he doesn't always remember who the kids are he lights up when he sees them. On Vivian's birthday I asked her to stand next to him so I could take a photo. Evan ran up and jumped on his lap to finish out the group.

Evan Photos

Today I imported some photos from Jo's iPhone. In there I found two photos of Evan that I had never seen before. In the first one he is getting a haircut. He invariably returns home with uneven hair that Jo and I have to trim. It's obvious that he isn't enjoying the experience at Bird's barber Shop. In the second photo, he's singing with the rest of the school the day their old director left - dressed in his "real men eat cupcakes" t-shirt. A little bit behind him and to the left you can see his friend R who he has his arm around in a photo in a previous post. The last photo is from my iPhone. On Mondays Evan is off while Vivian is at school. So we get to spend some quality time with him. Jo and he and I had gone to 24 Diner for lunch with the intention of going across the street to shop at Whole Foods later. But all three of us ate too much and had to hurry home soon after I took this photo to nap.

He's in a learning phase. Two weeks ago he used to sing "ABCD now I know my ABCD's, next time wont you sing with me". Any attempt by us to coax him past "D" was met with an instant and vehement "No". Yesterday he went all the way to "Z". It looks like his teachers at Grace have the whole class on downers or pot or something all the time because they are all so chilled. But they are still teaching him something...dude.

Friends and Neighbors

When I got my dad from Hyderabad to come live with us, Jo thought it was time to make the house bigger. I suggested that we call a real estate agent and look at some bigger houses. But we both knew we couldn't do that because Vivian and Ava wouldn't be neighbors then. Here's what they do every afternoon. Ava is dressed in Vivian's Turkish belly dancing outfit that Minal got her from Istanbul and a fuzzy glittery tiara.

The other day Ava and Vivian and Eleanor were playing in Eleanor's home. Some words were spoken and Vivian said that she did not want to be Ava's friend any more. Yesterday she made this card for Ava and went and gave it to her. Note the two stick figure girl's hair. She wrote that she was sorry ("sree") that they broke-up ("brocup"). They are back to being the best of friends today.

Srampoline

Evan thanked us for putting together his new"srampoline". And he asks if he can go jump on it at all hours of the day. Karen and Jo went in on it together and bought the kids a bigger nicer trampoline. And on a coolish windy morning this weekend Jo put it together. Here's a picture of Vivian getting staticy in there. And all three kids jumping on the srampoline. You can see the old one in the background. Know anyone that  wants a well-loved and well-used old trampoline?