anyways. as much as i love to write, i also love to read.
and one of my favorite authors is my incredible husband.
on a fairly regular basis, tony sends his sweet gramma doris emails with little updates about our lives and the crazy things that lyla and olivia seem to do all on their own.
the other day tony was showing me some emails that he had received and while we were scrolling through his in-box a few caught my attention.
this is one of them.
(some of the content has been edited...to protect the innocent, of course)
*Grandma,
Well, Kim and the girls have had some crazy days.
It's been nothing but sunny for weeks on end but last Thursday it rained. It didn't just rain, it down poured. I was at work that day in an important meeting where we were making some hiring decisions and could not be pulled away by anything...I thought. My boss and I and the interviewee were all huddled together talking over the logistics of the job when the phone rang. It was a double ring. Let me explain. The phone lines are wired on campus so that if someone on campus calls it just rings; one ring at a time. If someone off campus calls it bangs out really quick, successive, double rings. This was one of those double rings which is normally just one person. My lovely wife. I dove for the phone and answered after the first double ring. "Uh-huh," I said. "Okay," I said. "I'll be right there." I said. I put down the phone and started putting on my coat. Turning to the expectant faces of my boss and the person we were interviewing I said:
"My wife locked herself out of the house and left the kids locked in the car, so she's standing outside in the rain between the two and needs me to come unlock everything."
They both nodded with a knowing smiles (they have kids of their own) and I raced home. It's about a 10 minute walk, I did it in five and was still soaked to the bone. I rounded the corner coming up to our block and there was Kimberley; in the rain, doing a dance in front of the car windows. I could hear screaming and see little arms and legs flailing in the windows. Kim's hair was matted to her head and her clothes were absolutely sopping wet but she was doing a two step and singing at the top of her lungs; giving it all the vaudeville she could to keep the kids (and I expect herself) from going insane.
After I had everything unlocked and dried off, Kim told me she had run up and down the street until she got an answer at the door of a professor who was off for the summer. He answered the door with his white hair in a giant crows nest ...but was glad to let her in to use the phone once he understood the predicament...
Olivia has turned out to be quite the eater. For instance the other day I fed her three bowls of a black bean and rice mixture for supper. An hour later we went to town and she ate an entire chocolate chip muffin. Once we got home she then proceeded eat a banana and three crackers. It's not just how much she eats but how she eats it. She's like a little shark. There's just enough chewing and ripping so she can swallow the darn thing before she's screaming for the next bite. Last Friday we took her to the faculty pick nick and noticed we didn't have to feed her that much. We were surprised at first that she didn't seem hungry because that had never happened before. Keeping a closer eye on her I noticed that she didn't seem as hungry because she was wandering around the pick nick area eating food off peoples plates who had left them unprotected. From a distance she would watch someone eating and as soon as they got up she would amble on over to their plate, snatch up piece of watermelon and run like crazy, munching as she went. We put a stop to that.
Later at the pick-nick Lyla was stung by a wasp. Luckily she didn't turn out to be allergic and I had some supplies on campus that I was able to treat the wound with. She cried for a long time but by the next morning the swelling was down and she seemed just fine.
I went into work on Monday and hoped nothing else crazy would happen. I made it through the whole day and my boss was just about to leave when the phone did another double ring. Uh-oh I thought. I picked up the pone and I noticed the bosses ears perk up from across the room. It was Kimberley again. "Uh-huh," I said, "Okay," I said. "Did you check your Jewelry box...well, I'm almost done with work and then I'll be home." I hung up and avoided looking at my boss.
"Well," he said with a small smirk on his face, not willing to let it go, "Everything okay at home?"
"Yeah," I said sheepishly, "Sorta, Kim brought the kids back from the pool and when she was in the other room Lyla dumped out all the contents of her purse and now one of her diamond earrings is missing; she thinks Olivia ate it."
My boss paused for a second and then with small, sneaky smile he said, "Well, I guess she should have left the kids locked in the car this time." We both laughed at that one and when I told Kimberley later she laughed too.
We love you grandma and hope you are doing well. Love Tony, Kimberley, Lyla and Olivia *
for the record, i still haven't found the earring...but then, i didn't go digging through all the poop just to recover it. there's just something about a poop-laden earring that seemed a little unappealing to stick back in my ear.
even if it was disinfected.
