Sharing Simple Pleasures with a Granddaughter ...

Sometimes in the hustle and bustle of everyday life, we lose sight of simple little things in life that give us pleasure. A lot of things give us pleasure, such as a new car, or boat, or new clothes ... but I'm not talking about things. I'm talking about simple pleasures ... like rocking your grandbaby. Our three-year old granddaughter Avery Grace has almost outgrown my lap, but I dearly love rocking her in the creaky old rocking chair that I rocked her mama in when she was a baby. I cherish our "rocking times" and guess I'll go on rocking her as long as she'll let me, no matter how big she gets. I also love cooking with her. She's like a little sponge and her eyes just light up when I say, "Let's make cookies!" or "I need some help making potato salad," which she loves. Recently, we made a Lemon Pie ... [If you'd like a delicious and easy Lemon Pie recipe, and would like to see more pictures of Avery making ours, please read my "On Cooking with a Granddaughter" post] Another Avery-related "simple pleasure" turned out to be not so simple -- growing Morning Glories. I wanted her to experience the whole process of planting the seeds and watering them and watching them grow. I even bought two packets of seeds, just to be sure some would come up. I also bought her the cutest little gardening gloves and little yellow watering can. I didn't think we'd ever get all her little fingers in the right fingers of the gloves, but we finally succeeded and I showed her how to "dig" the holes, drop the seeds in, and cover them up. Then we filled her watering can and she gently watered them in. And then we waited ... and waited, and watched, and watered, and waited some more ... and NO Morning Glories. Well, after about two weeks of watering and waiting and watching, I decided those seeds weren't going to come up, so I bought three more packets and planted them. I know, I know ... I probably shouldn't have done that, but I just couldn't stand for her flowers not to come up! Every weekend when she came to see us, we would check for sprouts and water some more. Then, lo and behold, one day I saw these little fellas poking through the pine straw ... Kind of pitiful looking, but at least I had something to show Avery, and I couldn't wait 'til that weekend. She was so excited when she saw them, and we watered and pulled weeds around them and envisioned a profusion of blooms covering the fence. We had "high hopes" for them, but I've never seen such slowwwwwwwww-growing Morning Glories. They took their own sweet time, but, after a while, they had little tendrils reaching out for something to cling to. We went to Home Depot and bought a trellis for them to climb, and every weekend Avery checked to see how much they had grown during the week. Finally, our high hopes paid off -- we had a Morning Glory! Again, I had to wait 'til the weekend to show it to Avery, but she was delighted and called her mama, granddaddy, and her great-grandparents (my parents), outside to see the Morning "Gwo-ey" (Avery-talk for "Glory"). I'm going to have my camera handy when I show them to her this weekend, because, at last, I think you can say we have a "profusion of Morning Glories" ... I'll post a picture next week of Avery when she sees the blooms for the first time. I can just see her little face light up ... and that's always a pleasure for her Grandmama. Sincerely,