It’s Not a Flower

Our second snow of the season had not melted by 10 am, so I jumped at the chance to make myself feel better. Generally speaking, Southerners don’t give a hoot about the weather up North other than for reasons of idle conversation or pity; but when Roy called from New York, I just knew that this was my chance to reclaim the weather high ground. Snow makes me desperate.

“We got about two inches,” said Roy. Oh good grief! Six to eight inches of winter menace lay in our yard and was threatening to reincarnate as ice by morning. I handed the phone to Tim.

There was nothing to do but make the best of it. To tell the truth, we had been making the best of it for about five weeks. Renovating bathrooms is NOT a winter project as we painfully learned. Our house is completely upside down and inside out, because the contractors do not have a firm grasp of the concept “time is money.” While we are snowed in, they are conveniently snowed out. Perhaps they should have thought about possible weather delays last Wednesday when they worked 45 minutes. Arrrgh!

Anna Lauren, our three year old granddaughter, is staying with us while her parents have gone to Phoenix for the Auburn game and a week of more fun than allowed by law. I hope it is warm and sunny.

I don’t do snow, so Tim, whose Yankee upbringing prepared him for such inevitabilities, took charge of playing with Anna Lauren outside. She put on her pink coat, pink gloves, pink hat, and Bryan’s old green dinosaur boots and was out the door. Tim found his old (and I do mean old) sled in the basement and pulled her to the top of the driveway over and over while she sang at the top of her lungs. She made snow angels and chased Lucy. I took a few pics from the porch. When she got cold enough, she was ready for inside activities.

She has played for hours in the loft with toys from the collective childhoods of several generations. She has colored, drawn a self-portrait, counted Lucy’s legs, dressed and undressed her dolls, and made a playhouse out of the new grill box. Lucy has been a pirate, a bed buddy, a hair model, a pillow, and an overall good sport.

Tim and Anna Lauren assembled a gingerbread house kit that I bought at Walmart before Christmas. Yummy! Fortunately, Anna Lauren doesn’t know that gingerbread isn’t supposed to taste like cardboard. She didn’t like the gum drops but loved licking the frosting off the roof. She foraged for pink gum balls while Tim repaired one of his gum ball machines and shared her cereal with Lucy. When she isn’t playing, she is watching Nanny McPhee or the bad Alice (Alice in Wonderland with Johnny Depp). She can discuss both movies---in detail, scene by scene. If you have to be snowed in with someone, Anna Lauren provides great entertainment.

Yesterday, as I patiently waited for Anna Lauren to potty, she told me, “Don’t sniff, Grammy. It’s not a flower.”

Surely, the sun will come out tomorrow.

Anna Lauren’s Grammy