G is for Gay

I was telling the story yesterday of Greysen getting a cold this past week while we were traveling for my Gramma's funeral. And I said to a co-worker, "I can't get him to stop kissing people on the mouth, so, of course, he got sick. And then he probably infected everyone he kissed as well."

The co-worker responded, with a chuckle, "Wouldn't it be funny if Greysen turned out to be flaming Gay?"

I didn't know how to respond. How does one respond to this question? It raised so many questions and so many responses, that I was stunned into a non-response. That just isn't like me.

Relatedly, yesterday was the official end to the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy of the military in the U.S. Witness history and be proud that the U.S. can look beyond this irrelavant personal detail. The question was, for this situation and for the instance of my co-worker making that comment, "What does it matter?"

F is for Family

My Gramma, Marie Martell, died last week, Sept. 8, 2011. She held on, despite not having eaten or taken her meds for the week prior, until my Mama and I arrived to say goodbye. She died an hour later.

To honor the life of this cute and feisty lady, our whole Family gathered at the church in Wishek, North Dakota. It's the first time the cousins had been together since my Grandpa passed away 24 years ago. Gramma was never one to travel far or wide but was always wherever her Family could be found. She would have been so happy to see us all together in one place.


I hope the smile that has been missing from your face in your latest days has found you again Gramma. I love you, I miss you. Rest in peace.

E is for Exploded

I initially planned to call this post Eloquent. It is a bit of a stretch to call Greysen's speech eloquent. However, it is not a stretch to say that his speech has Exploded in the last week or so. He now talks in sentences and we can actually have short conversations about rocks and food and toys, mostly trucks and airplanes.

While we drove in the car, and Greysen in his carseat, from Wishek, ND to Dickinson, ND a couple days ago (a subject I will write about in the next post), Cassie asked Greysen what he'd like to eat in addition to what he'd already (barely) eaten. She said, "What else do you want?" And Greysen responded, referring to his carseat, "I want out."

This morning Greysen threw a temper tantrum (nope, we aren't spared from those) and whipped his head backward right into my nose. I put him down while I reeled from the pain. Greysen stopped his tantrum and followed me as I sat on the stairs. He put his hand on my arm and said, "Mama, hurt." And then he pointed to himself when Andrew asked me what happened and he said, "Greysen" in his pained, scrunched-up, hurt face. He was acknowledging that he hurt me.

He can count to 10 by himself, sings every single word of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star by himself and in the right tune and he sings over and over his A,B, C's up to J and then ends it with (in the right tune), "Now I know my A, B's."

Is it any wonder that I can't keep up with this? SHEESH!

The comprehension amazes me. I know he understands more than he can speak. So the smarts of this kid is, by far, already surpassed his Mama. And it'll only get better ...

D is for DIRT

The Jakes' camped but one measley time this summer ... well, 2 if you count the backyard campout. We don't ...

We went to an access spot near Helena hoping to cut down on the time traveling to the spot and instead just finally get to enjoy some relaxing time doing what we love to do.

Greysen recently decided to push limits; trying to redefine boundaries; like the one where we've prohibited eating Dirt. He thinks that one is unreasonable. Handfuls of Dirt are Delicious.

We had a great time regardless and hope that next summer we will have many more dog days of summer to wile away next to a stream where the rocks are so great that we can't even bear to throw them.