Day 18 - Grandparents

It's hard to recall memories of my grandparents as we didn't often see them, I decided to pay homage to three Grandmothers (two I knew and one I did not).

My Mother's parents both passed away before my Mom was very old and she was raised by her grandmother, my Great-Grandma Ruby (pictured in the bottom photo cooking with unidentified male). I can vaguely remember my Great-Grandma and my sisters and I just called her Grandma Ruby; it did not register with us for many years that although we knew our Mom's mother was dead that Grandma Ruby was actually our Great-Grandma. I can mostly remember her being a very tiny woman who was a lot of fun to be around. I can remember bowls of candy on her side tables and doilies all over the place, and she cooked - all the time.

My Mother's mother is pictured in the the black and white photo off to the side with my mother, aunt, and uncle as children. The story I can recall being told about her death is that my Aunt I. was caught in the ocean and my Grandmother and Grandfather went out to save her. My Grandmother did not make it and my Grandfather and Aunt were in the hospital for awhile - my Grandfather longer then my Aunt. After this incident my Grandfather left his three children with his mother and father and eventually passed away within a couple of years. (I'm not sure of those facts as I can recall the story being told to me many years and it is just something we didn't/don't discuss in our family.)

The above photo is a picture of my Father's mother with my older sister and me. I carry her first name as my middle name so I have always felt a sort of closer kinship with her. I can remember her being tall and stately and it was a shock to see her as I grew older and suddenly she seemed smaller. She was a big smoker and when her health started to decline and she had to quit she also started gaining weight and the image in my mind is still overridden today with images of her being a tall stately grandmother who loved watching college football. I can remember looking through our family photos and finding one of her doing a handstand in the backyard and that is an image I carry close to my heart even today.

I often wonder how my life would have been affected if we had lived closer to our grandparents and gotten to know them even better. I was often jealous of my Uncle's children and how they knew our Great-Grandmother so well. I thank God every day that my daughter is able to know and love her grandparents.

I strive hard to make sure she knows all of her Grandparents by making them a large part of our life even though thousands of miles may separate us. We are always in touch via e-mail and teleconference several times. My parents live close enough they are able to come up and visit and my husband's parents take the time to come visit as often as they can. My daughter has photo albums of family members that we go through almost weekly, daily before trips to visit them. We did this enough that the last visit we had she knew her Great-Grandma B. was and was able to go up and give her a hug and call her Grandma. This made her Great-Grandma's day as she is able to see my daughter so infrequently, yet my daughter knew who she was.

Exactly what I want for my family. A connection that lasts and makes an impression!

Day 8 - Makes Me Laugh

I knew it would be difficult to go 365 days and not include my daughter in at least one shot - I was hoping to get farther along before she was the answer to the question. At the same time, I am glad to get it over with and I did give the prompt - What Makes You Laugh - thought all day.

I find most things funny - pretty much life in general is amusing to me although you may not know it to look at me. I work with children and they make me laugh all day - a response I have to hide or they know the 'bad' thing they are doing is ok. However, I did not want to post pictures of them or the place the I work.

As I drove home I continued rolling the thought around in my brain - what makes me laugh and what pictures would tell 1000 words when taken to describe it. I thought of my family - and even considered taking a pictures of all my family photos but then decided that didn't quite capture the life of it all.

My mind wandered down the lanes of how to show life in general - and all I could think is that when I look at my daughter I see Life. I see Hope. I see the Future. She brings joy to my life by just being and showing me her fun quirky ways that make my daughter special, unique, and a constant source of personal amusement.

I knew I was left with no other choice but to include my daughter as the photo. This shot was taken while she was laughing, yelling at the t.v. screen, and playing her video game. Nothing makes me smile or laugh more then seeing her having so much fun.

Day 2 - Toys

Day 2 of the challenge was for toys.

The first thing to come to mind is a stuffed animal I have sitting next to my bed, a Snoopy. The story I was told, time and time again, was that as a young child - under the age of 5 (I can never honestly remember how old my Mother said I was) I saw a more expensive Snoopy in the store, grabbed it and would not let go. My Mother was finally able to convince me to take the less expensive one.

One of the stories from my own memory is from when I was in 4th grade. We had just made a move to a new town and were spending our first night in the house. I couldn't get to sleep and made my Dad go into the garage to find my Snoopy so I could sleep in the new house. I can remember standing in the garage doorway with my Mother, her arm around me watching my Dad open box after box until he found it. I don't remember standing there to long - so he must have known pretty much which box to hunt through/for.

Whenever I think of or see my Snoopy I also remember two other stuffed animals I had for most of my youth. One was a large yellow stuffed bear, I called Yellow Bear, he was a stiff animal with arms and legs sticking out. I can vaguely remember going into a trash can after him once when my Mother threw him away. I no longer have him so I can only surmise that he eventually did stay in the trash; my Mother has long told me that he was beyond repair and she had to get rid of him - I still feel slight twinges of anger and sadness at no longer having him in my possession.

The other companion to this trio was a large stuffed Cookie Monster with large plastic eyes on his head. I can remember the eyes being broken in the center connecting piece and you could make each eye sort of move on its own. Not such a break that he would require trashing. However; with the many moves that happened during the years it is believed he was in a group of boxes that seemed to disappear during one. Again, I always feel sadness at his missing - but not the twinges at anger that Yellow Bear brings to heart.

Snoopy has had several 'surgeries' through his long life. Each ear has been restitched on, his tail has been reattached, his mouth is just a faint line of memory on his face, his nose has threads always hanging loose, and his back sports a child's rough patching job with bright read thread (if I remember correctly, I could not find any other thread and he needed to be fixed RIGHT THAT MINUTE!) His neck also sports several surgery stitches, some in that same bright red thread.

Snoopy has been oversea, away to camp, hidden in bags on trips, and continues to be a part of my daily life by sitting on the nightstand shelf next to my bed. I am known to still pull him out if I am in the dumps and hold my breath when I dare throw him in the wash praying that he continues to hold together at the seams.

With this challenge still being so new, I found I still had a hard time not including my daughter and although the image is not here I also took a picture of my Snoopy with my daughters well loved Ducky.