Aftershock Chicken

Have I mentioned before what a wonderful thing grandparents are?  We are incredibly fortunate in that we have four grandparents to my children who live close to us and want to be part of both our and our children's lives.   There is no drama, and both my and my husband's parents enjoy each other's company.  I count us as very fortunate in many ways when it comes to my children's grandparents.

This afternoon my mother called and asked if we were doing anything tonight, and would we be up for her coming over to spend some time with the children.   She is upstairs in their bedroom right now, and there is joyful play happening.  My son is showing off, loud and boisterous while my daughter is jealously guarding Mimi's position near her, making sure she captures as much of my mother's attention as possible.

In the kitchen, you'll find my husband, who is channeling his mother as he prepares some bread she left for us before they went to Florida for the winter.   She brought a loaf of frozen bread over and a container of garlic butter she'd prepared that was to go on the loaf.   It feels as if she's right around the corner instead of states away.

I'm in the bedroom, sitting on the bed, typing away on my laptop while the rest of the family is occupied around me.   I was single for a long while.  Married life with children is a good thing (when the children aren't driving you up the wall, which you've heard about in other posts here.)

Dinner for this evening is a dish my husband made up a while ago, using some Penzy's seasoning given to him as a thank you present when our cousins came to visit.   My son, after trying the dish the last time his father made it said, "it's good, but it has an aftershock to it."  We agreed it had a delayed spicy bite to it, and then I told my son he'd just named the dish.

So tonight, when I asked my husband what was for dinner, he said, "I'm making Aftershock Chicken."  My mother is going to get to try it shortly.  I wonder if she'll agree with my son's description.

The Big Boy Update:  My son has watched through the sixth Harry Potter movie.   We went to dinner last night and said to him and the sitter that he could start on the seventh movie if he wanted to.   I told her he might get scared.  He was worried about several parts of the sixth movie and wanted to skip past them.   The movies are getting darker.   When we came home, Morgan told us he'd opted for watching The Sorcerer's Stone (the first movie) again in preparation for going to Harry Potter world this coming week at Disney.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter has figured out how to get to the top shelf in the closets in our house.  We have higher ceilings a,nd when Wayne was building out the closets I asked him to put not one, but two shelves at the top.   My daughter told me this morning, "Do you know what I was doing from 5:30 to 5:45 this morning?"  I had been asleep and told her I had no idea.   She had, in that span of time (which apparently she was monitoring) climbed up onto every top shelf in every closet in the house.