Granddaughters as Sweethearts

I was going to title this blog "princesses" until I read the definition and decided I didn't want to subject my grandchildren to the potential abuse the word princess could bring upon them, even though one of them continually tells us she is a princess. In fact, under the definitions of royalty, I do consider her a princess. To me they are all princesses and sweethearts, but to a 60 plus grandpa we hold different perceptions of terms and meanings than other people do. Hence, my use of princess is always an endearing one, not one of derision.

I am speaking of two of my eight sweethearts today. One young and one a little older. Our 3rd daughter had a little girl last week - Hattie CeCe. I have waited for what felt like an eternity for a photo. I had finally come to the conclusion that she was either two-headed or 12 toed, or had 3 arms and they didn't want me to see her. The real problem was that I left town without leaving the cables to the camera so my beloved could download the photos. Naturally it's grandpa's fault. I have broad shoulders, I can handle the abuse.

Yesterday I received 8 emails, each with about 8 high resolution photos. I have photos of Hattie CeCe now and my favorite is below. And yes, she is a royal princess and a sweetheart.

My second sweetheart is an almost tweener (those who are almost teens, but not quite). In fact she is probably better classified as a precocious tweener - not quite there, but a wanna be. She has her own email account and I love getting emails from her. They are usually in large print and every word is a different color. Well, I was a little slow responding to her last email and while I was not reprimanded I got a "vacation note" or what we typically call and out of the office and not available. But her note was the classiest I have ever received. I share it below.

"Sorry if I didn't e-mail you I am probably grounded or gone, I'll e-mail you as soon as I can, bye"

Grounded or gone? That describes life from the perspective of a child. They have a simple perspective and it is focused on levels of independence. As a pre-tweener it has 2 primary levels. Those things I can do and those thing I can't do. Of course the intermediate level is those things I didn't do I should have and those things I did that I shouldn't have - hence I'm grounded.

Ya gotta love them.

Sister's Weekend Has Officially Started

Although all of the girls arrived in Las Vegas for sister's weekend yesterday afternoon and evening, I discovered on the way to taking Suzanne & Sally to the Boise airport that sister's weekend officially begins when a husband calls with a question. At least they tell me that's how they know when sister's weekend begins. I didn't know that, but it seems reasonable since they think we are all incompetent anyway. And that's probably not far from the truth.

Yet, as I thought about it, doesn't it also work the other way? Now mind you, I'm not calling JoAnn incompetent, because she is far from it, but read the following 2 emails. I really think that Sister's weekend started on Wednesday evening a full 14 plus hours before anyone arrived in Las Vegas.

"Well, it's late and I went to set the alarm on the bedroom clock for tomorrow. It is flashing now and I can't figure out how to stop the flashing. I tried lots of ways and it is still flashing. I'm sure it easy, but I can't figure it out right now." In JoAnn's defense, the clock is older than any of our grandchildren. Read on, "I have a dr. appointment at 9 a.m. this morning. It is late and I might not wake up early enough. Please call me about 7 a.m. if you see this email in time. I need to leave here about 8:30 a.m."

I did call, but not because I saw the email. I never call before 8 am (I'm usually well one by then) and Thursday was no exception. The second email, however, redeemed JoAnn and put her back in the ranks of effectiveness.

"I'm up and going. It's 7 a.m. I remembered the clock in the guest bedroom last night after emailing you, so I have it in our room. I'm still not sure what happened to our clock. It is just old and can't stop blinking." JoAnn has become resourceful over the years, but still, I think this counts as the official start of Sister's Weekend. And yes, I will pay for this, but it may be worth it.