Tag Archives: grandchildren

Hoopla!

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Hoop it up! If you think hula hoops are only cheap plastic toys that kids play with in the backyard for a few minutes before going on to something else, then please think again. Older Daughter, an accomplished belly dancer and teacher, has fallen in love with hooping. It’s the latest fitness craze, plus it’s fun and easy to learn. I mean, who can resist picking one up and swaying those hips? You really get a feeling of accomplishment once you keep one in the air for a few minutes. But it’s more than core work. Older Daughter teaches workshops and classes in hooping, and she choreographs whole routines using your arms and legs for a total-body workout. Plus, she and my son-in-law make and sell hoops. It’s fascinating to watch the process. They make the hoops out of flexible plastic piping and then create the designs with sticky colored tape. Amazing! They do custom hoops as well as children and adult sizes and even portable hoops that fold up for easier transport. In true entrepreurial spirit, they’re planning to take their hooping business to the Web and sell at local festivals and shows — if only they could come up with a name. Every possibility on their list is already taken or one or the other of them doesn’t like it. The top contender of “Hip Happy Hoops” turned out to be close to the name of a Web site touting recreational drug use — not really good for the family-friendly image they’re going for. Husband and I think they should go with “Capt. Adorable’s Hoops.” After all, 2-year-old grandson Capt. Adorable is a great help with the family business — he jumps up and down on the hoops when they’re laid out on the floor and unravels the rolls of tape when he’s not using them as dog toys. Adorable!!!

Shameless Self-Promotion

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I am not one to use my blogging space to shamelessly market and promote my other endeavors … I mean …. to try to convince you to read my things I actually get paid for … uh … I mean … to try to up readership of my other online articles … oh, what the heck … Here is a food story I did today for the TimesDaily on a cool and refreshing no-cook fresh-vegetable salad — http://www.timesdaily.com/article/20100728/ARTICLES/307289999 — and my latest weekly newspaper column, http://www.timesdaily.com/article/20100723/ARTICLES/307239995, which is about my 2-year-old grandson Capt. Adorable and I learning how much fun it is to drop globs of Play-Doh on the floor and squish them flat with our feet. His mommy was not amused. Okay, the commercial is over. We now return to your regularly scheduled blogging.

Art

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Our 2-year-old grandson, Capt. Adorable, is a huge fan of trains and so the family has all gone a little train crazy. By now, most of us can create a train with whatever materials we have on hand in two minutes flat. The winner for Best Train Creation, of course, goes to the Captain’s daddy and here’s why. Exhibit A, on the left: My son-in-law’s sidewalk chalk drawing of a train. Exhibit B, on the right: My sidewalk chalk drawing of a train, helpfully identified as such in case anybody has trouble recognizing it. Now, can you guess which of us is a trained, money-making artist and high-school art teacher and which one of us is not?

Huntsville, Alabama

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Two-year-old grandson Capt. Adorable has gone train crazy. He plays for minutes (in 2-year-old time, that’s hours for you and me) with his Thomas the Train sets, knows all the Thomas the Train names and can even sing the songs with a British accent — well, it sounds British to me, anyway. So of course his daddy had to take him to the Depot Museum in Huntsville, Alabama, to see the real thing along with fire trucks, antique cars and all sorts of fun train stuff. His other grandma and I were so tickled that the Captain refused to play with the train toys set up in the “Children’s Playroom” and went straight for the actual full-sized ones. That’s our baby! He also got a kick out of the fire engine and realized that the firehouse dalmation dog needed a fire hat of his own. Genius child! If you’ve got a train fan in your family, too, plan a visit of your own. http://www.earlyworks.com/the-museums/train-depot

Father’s Day

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These two guys on the left reading the classic “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish” share not one iota of DNA – but they sure look alike, don’t they? Okay, except maybe for the hair. But they’re both concentrating mightily on their book and I think they even have the same look on their faces, as if they can’t wait to see what happens on the next page. (Spoiler alert: Five fish, six fish, seven fish, more!) My dear husband very very rarely uses the word “step” when he talks about the two daughters he got when he married me six years ago — they are his family and that’s all there is to it. So it tickled him when grandson Capt. Adorable, now 2, was younger and balder and people who didn’t know would say, “Oh, y’all look so much alike!” Sort of like the picture on the right of the Captain and my dad, his great-grandfather, taken when the Captain was only a few months old. He was fascinated with my dad’s watch and would do his best to eat it — and my dad loved every minute of it. Couldn’t get enough Now, Dad takes him on John Deere gator rides and they “talk” tractors. Lucky baby to have such loving men in his life — and that’s not counting his own dad and other grand- and great-grandfathers and uncles and great-uncles. I’m lucky that way, too. And you, also, I bet. Happy Father’s Day!

Children

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My dear husband always cautions me against overloading you all with photos of 2-year-old grandson Capt. Adorable, but I can’t help it. I mean, he is so adorable, right? And it’s the weekend and I only have about 10 minutes before Dr. Who starts and I haven’t blogged for a couple of days so I really want to get something up here and I was browsing through my photos and saw this and I knew — I KNEW — you would want to see it, too. I mean, look at those curls! That determined look in his eyes. Those precious little baby knees. Adorable!!! This is at the opening this past week of the new Earth Fare — now officially my most favorite grocery ever, although I still cannot pass by a Whole Foods or Fresh Market without stopping — in Huntsville, Alabama. All sorts of vendors were outside passing out samples and free stuff — Party Time! Anyway, we were lured over to the kettle-corn guys by the irresistible kettle-corn smell and Capt. Adorable immediately was taken with their cart shaped like an old-fashioned car — or maybe it really was some kind of old car or something. The kettle-corn guys told us all about it but I was too busy drinking in the Captain’s adorability to listen closely. It’s a grandma thing.

Art

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My son-in-law — 2-year-old Capt. Adorable’s daddy — is an artist and a high-school art teacher, which is why one of the Captain’s first words was, “Draw!” This also is why the Captain’s bathtub is an ever-changing gallery of 2-year-old-friendly art, thanks to crayons mades especially for bathtub scribbling. And as you can see, when there’s an artist in the family, the bathtub art gets elevated beyond the average non-artist-person’s scribbling. My son-in-law is one of the most talented and creative people I know — I mean, how many kids can take a bath surrounded by Elmo and “Goodnight, Moon”? There is a downside to living with an artist, however, according to Older Daughter. “When we three do Play-doh,” she said, sighing, “I make a dog. You know, a dog. With four feet and ears and maybe a tail. Then my husband out-Play-dohs me and makes a perfect West Highland White Terrier with a name and everything.” But she’s one up on me since I can’t even make a dog. I’m very good with snakes, though. And, luckily, the Captain so far is happy with all skill levels.

Books

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When only sitting in a toy box will do ... Almost 22-month-old grandson Capt. Adorable finds the best seat in the house for perusing his favorite read.

Christmas

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Hope you have a wonderfully merry Christmas -- and keep a sense of wonder and delight just like grandson Capt. Adorable.

Children

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"Would you like sugar and cream with that?" Grandson Capt. Adorable, almost 21 months old, enjoys tea time at his great-grandparents' house with special guests Cookie Monster and Alf.