Strawberry Jello With Bananas

My best friend from all the way back to elementary school gave my mother an unexpected present at the baby shower for my first born.  The gift was a book for grandmothers.  It had lots of questions in it that the grandmother would answer, such as, "where were you born?" and, "who was your best friend when you were young?"  I had never heard of a book for Grandmothers before.

My mom worked on it on and off for some time.  It doesn't sound like something that would take a long time to complete, mostly because the book isn't physically large, but some questions needed thought or research like, "what was the address of your first home?"   Every so often, my mother would tell me she was working on the grandmother book (by this time, I had two children) and I'd tell her how much I'm sure they would appreciate the effort she was going through for them.

This Christmas, which is just after my son's third birthday, "Mimi" gave her book to our two children.  They can't read.  They don't have an understanding at all about the career choices their grandmother made in her life and what hobbies she liked to do as a child.  But they will some day, because she wrote it down for them.

I read through the entire book and there were so many things I didn't know.  I found out my mother loved strawberry jello with bananas, something her grandmother used to make that she said, "I could never get enough of."  So recently, when she came over for dinner, we had strawberry jello with bananas for her.  My children loved it almost as much as Mimi.

When my mother gave the children her book at Christmas, I took a picture of it on my cell phone and texted it to my friend who had given it to her.  I told her, "thank you for the wonderful gift.  Mom has just finished it and we will cherish it always."

Then, I ordered one for my running friend.  My friend's mother was recently diagnosed with cancer and she was having a radical operation on January 6th to remove her esophagus and in doing so, the cancer.  My friend has had her mother's mortality on her mind so much since she was diagnosed two months ago.  She had also never heard of a grandmother book either and was very touched by the gift.  Her mother has four little granddaughters she can think of as she fills out that book now that her surgery is over and was the success we all hoped it would be. 

The Big Boy Update:  "We're going to get our shoes so we can sing songs outside while swinging."  He told us this this afternoon when he and his sister decided they wanted to go out in the back yard.  They were both wearing only underpants and a shirt at the time.  He got his shoes and went out.  She walked around in the wet grass for a while and came in saying her feet were cold.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:   Wellies.  She has these pink Hello Kitty rain boots she likes to put on.  She gets them out of the drawer, sits down, usually gets them on the wrong feet, and then stomps around the house in them.  Tonight after it was dark, she put them on and went out in the front yard for a while wearing only a shirt and underpants as accompaniment.   She didn't seem to get cold so I had to lure her (and her brother who was similarly dressed) back in with the promise of a game of hide and go seek.

Fitness Update:  The cortisone shot in my elbow has reduced the pain a good bit.  But I can hear it make a crunching noise every time I do something with it under tension.   The MRI didn't show anything much (like floating debris) but something's going on still.  Oh, and I went to the gym this morning.  Don't tell my trainer, but 7.0 speed at 7.0 incline isn't as hard as it used to be.