We'll miss you, Grandma

My grandma didn't quite make it to her 103rd birthday, but she was pretty dang close. Holding off until just past midnight, she passed away on the anniversary of her own father's passing.

The visitation and funeral were beautiful tributes to her memory, and it was so nice to see all the family again. One of my favorite parts was when everyone had the opportunity to stand up and share a memory. At the very end, Sam stood up in front of everyone and with a loud voice said, "I know why Grandma wants to go to heaven.  She wants to be with Grandpa Lawrence!" I think she would have been proud to see her faith passed down to this 4-year old descendent of hers who embraces the hope that this good-bye is not forever, and that we will all be reunited again someday.

At one point, I was reminded of a story Grandma once told me of my great-aunt's visitation.  I was young enough at the visitation that I barely remember it. Several years afterwards, my grandma told me how much she had enjoyed watching me walk right up to my great-aunt and, full of interest and curiosity, peer in to get a closer look. Laughing at the memory, she said how her sister "would have just loved that!"

So I smiled when I saw my own children (and my nephew) go up to their great-grandma several times to pay their respects and say their last goodbyes, knowing how happy she would be to have these little great-grandchildren there.

I will miss bringing the kids to visit her; she would always ask, "Do they talk a lot?"
And I was always able to answer very honestly, "Yes. They never stop."
"Good," she would say, apparently happy to know that her genes were being passed along.
The only Irish blood my kids have comes from her, but apparently that has been enough to completely fill our home with the "Gift of Gab." Once, upon hearing the story of how Grandma's father used to offer to pay her if she could stop talking for 10 minutes, Elena decided she wanted to try. After 4 successive failures at this attempt, she said, "Let's just try again tomorrow."

Here's Grandma with 3 of her (nearly) 7 great-grandchildren. (And this is a woman who, after having to hold off on marriage until she was 38 due to an interruption from WWII, thought she would never even live to see the day she had a grandchild.)

Falling Behind

We've been extra busy around here so I've had to let go of several things for the time being, one of those things being the blog.  I have a few quiet moments here while Charlie sleeps, though, so I thought I would finally update this thing.

Our most exciting news is that Charlie started to crawl about a month ago! He has already started to climb our treacherous steps so we will all have to get used to maneuvering around baby gates for the next year or so. He has also mastered opening all the kitchen drawers and cupboards and pulling everything out.  As an added bonus, he's great at smashing his fingers when the drawers slide back shut.

Seth's dad had his appendix out a few weeks ago. Of course, it landed right at the peak of harvesting time.  He is lucky to have 5 boys at times like this! Seth has been putting in extra hours out in the field; Sam and Elena are out with him now. It's nice for him to have work where the kids can come along. He asked me the other day if his being gone so much has been getting to me.

Fortunately, I haven't let myself get stressed about it.  I've found that if I can focus on the bare necessities (basically keeping the family fed) and let pretty much everything else go, we can all stay happy.  Sure, walking through our house is like going through a mini-obstacle course and I'm running out of clean clothes to dress the children in.  Also there are times when getting a shower in is next impossible. But I've learned to just turn a blind eye to the mess for now, throw my greasy hair up into a ponytail, and keep my head a safe distance away from heat sources. I'm sure in about 2 weeks when I try to "catch up" on everything, I may have a small breakdown, but that's what chocolate is for.

It doesn't help that in the middle of all of this, Charlie came down with a nasty cold and fever, requiring me to hold him for 2 days straight. Also my grandma had a heart attack so we threw a last minute trip to St Peter in this week and had a nice visit with her in the hospital. We maybe should not have made it a surprise visit, however. At one point, I was very seriously wondering if her excitement over seeing the kids was going to kill her.

Charlie's awake so I guess I'm done here. Here he is crawling: