Thursday, December 3, 2009

Puppydog Tails

The old Nursery Rhyme says it all--Little girls are as different from little boys as sugar and spice is from snakes and snails! As I have written in this blog, I have five granddaughers, and one grandson. So I have been immersed in the "Sugar and Spice" years, with three girls coming along in a three year span.

Then came Cade. As soon as he became mobile, we could observe a very different play pattern. He was thrilled by anything that moved, made noise, or preferably, did both. Where the girls were content to sit and color pretty pictures, he was more about throwing the crayons, or grinding them down to a nub on the paper. He wanted to growl and pop and squeak, and drive the crayons along the table.

At 3 plus years now, he is in love with the Cars of the Pixar movie by that name. He has a small collection of them, and carries them around in a little canvas case all day. His favorite is a red racy car named "Lightning McQueen", and when we play, Cade is always Lightning. There is a green Mustang named "Chick Hicks" and a towtruck named " Mater", and a Ferrari named "Luigi". There is another Italian car named "Guido", and a slinky blue Miata-type car named "Sally" as well as a model T named "Liz" and a 57 Chevy called "Ramone." One of them is a blue Transam Cade calls "Mr. The King." I am not sure why he calls him "Mr."

As I said, when we "play cars" Cade is always Lightning. I often try for Sally, as I love the look of her, but he always assigns me Ramone, which he somehow seems to know is the same vintage as I! Chick Hicks has a way of being left under the sofa, and it seems we are always looking for that guy. Mater has a loose tire, and Guido and Luigi are always racing around the coffee table.

For Christmas, I am making him a Lightning McQueen throw for his bed. He thinks he should be able to get a Lightning McQueen scooter, and a Lightning McQueen backpack, and when his sister got the first Bible of her very own, he asked if he could get a "Lightning McQueen Bible"!! I know this will probably pass, as something new catches his fancy. But it amazes me how much he knows about all these little cars, and how he has memorized the book about them. When we "play cars", he lines them up across the coffee table, and then we push them all off the other side onto the floor. He picks them up, lines them up on the opposite side, and the whole operation is repeated, amid much laughter and joy.

Since he is the one and only so far as grandboys go, I am enjoying each phase with him. I tell him always that he is my favorite grandson. And I guess it is ok that he sees me as the 57 Chevy. They were hot, weren't they?

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Beginnings

Beginnings are my favorite things. Beginnings are new babies, puppies, the first day of school, and the first kiss. I love buying fabrics for a new quilt, and choosing yarn for a new sweater. Beginnings, while they are still themselves, hold the promise of perfection.

When I am beginning that sweater, I imagine it finished, fitting perfectly, and making me feel beautiful when I wear it. I don't envision dropped stitches or mysterious bulges from losing sight of the pattern while talking on the phone. Beginnings are free of the heartaches that often come with finishing. When I am beginning, I don't yet know how hard it will be, what mistakes I'll make, or what part of me will be used up in the process. Finishing has its own rewards, but dreams belong to beginnings.

So....I began this blog and haven't written in it for nearly a year. I am beginning again. A lot has happened since the last entry, but I am not picking up where I left off. It is a NEW beginning and I am going to write more. Fall does that to me. I am energized by the crisp weather and the falling leaves. Maybe it stems from childhood and that first day of school, but I have always loved the autumn.

Here I am at 62, beginning again, this time a new job. I thought I would be finishing jobs at this age, not starting new ones. But the economy and our out-of-whack elected officials (don't get me started on this one, that is a blog of its own!) have started a downturn that may end with all of us out of work. So we work on, my husband and I, and hope our health and energy outlive the need to do so.

This new job has lots of beginnings for me. One of them is commuting with public transportation. My new company is in downtown Seattle, where parking is non-existent, and they pay for my bus/train pass, so it is a no-brainer for me to use it. But I was like a little kid for the first week, nervous about whether the right bus would stop the right place, etc. I tried several combinations of train/bus/bus/train, and finally settled on an express bus from a park-and-ride lot. Now I am a pro, and know all the bus routes and where they stop. And I am enjoying not buying gas or paying a bridge toll. There is an added bonus to commuting by public transport: I get to knit for 45 minutes each way. Therefore I will also be finishing more!