I Started This Blog Post on Sunday Morning, Early....

But didn't get to finish it.  
I'm taking Ada and John home today.
It's been quite a week.  

Cousins.

Ann and I couldn't get over the energy generated when these four got together.

Admittedly, they exhausted us and we had to take breaks from that combo all along.

Ada would wake up asking if she was going to see Ellie and Luke that day.

And there was no leaving Andrew out of the action.

and all week John worked on

maneuvering my back steps, alone.

Fat Toes.  I love baby feet!

Ann took them to the park and to the splash park

on two different days.  

While I kept John and Abigail.

Here is where I was interrupted.

Today is a new post.

After the interruption, yesterday, I greeted Ada and John who were waking up.

From there we did "breakfast", completed packing and dressing and preparing for the road trip home.

I drove them home to McDonough.

From McDonough I drove to Tallassee, AL, by way of I-85, getting off at the Auburn exit and

driving through town, College St, to get to Co Rd. 14 which takes me to Tallassee.

Beth and Jamie Baldwin have created their home there on the land

where Beth grew up.  She loves South Alabama the way I do.

It's home.

Her oldest daughter, Hope, lives here across the country road from Beth.

It's all a very well planned, country, South Alabama, pastoral paradise.

They all enjoy hard work very much and do most everything by themselves.

They budget, they deal in bargains, they give, give, give and work, work, work,

and those are some images of  the results.

I've returned to Scottsboro today.

I have a cold, which Ada gave to me.

That's okay.  I never have colds.

I'm having to shift gears, having been the caregiver to Ada and John for 7 days.

Go back to Grandmother with no Grandchildren living in the house.

It's a major shift in gears - a welcomed one - yet...... 

there's the missing them and the knowing they're where they belong.

When I drove up to Laura Beth's and Scott's house yesterday, 

I almost couldn't stop the car fast enough.

They were rushing out to the car to retrieve their girl and boy.  

The reunion was very endearing.

I loved it.

Images from the week.

My sweet Georgia grandchildren.

The Help and What I've Been Doing Since My Last Post 9 Days Ago

Charlie and I did go see The Help - I really, really liked it.  I had read the book already because I knew it would be so much better than the movie and I definitely wanted to see the movie - but didn't want the movie to ruin the book for me.  I have read lots of articles about the author - who is from Jackson, MS.

I am 60 - so I lived through all of that.  I have my own stories from my very white perspective and wish so much we hadn't all been so blind.  Anyone of us in my age bracket lived through the reality of that - It was and continues to be shocking to me.  I was born in 1951 and so of course in 1961 I was only 10.

The book is good and trumps the movie.  Still, the movie is so good, too.  I watched it with Mike and Mary Bratton, and Charlie and none of them had read the book.  I was curious to get their reaction.  They liked it a lot.

There's a lady in south Alabama whom I know.  I knew her as a child when she would help Mother with Mary Ann and me.  I LOVED her.  She was just a very young teenager when she would baby sit us.  I thought she was beautiful and had a magical energy.  I never forgot her.  I never knew her last name until our paths crossed again when I was 50.  Mary Ann knew she'd moved back to Evergreen and she and her sister were willing to help us care for Mom after Mother's near fatal stomach event which had put her in intensive care.  I remember my strong emotional reaction when I saw her again.  I was maybe 4 or 5 the last time I'd seen her.  I cried and was trembling.  She had no idea that she'd meant that much to me.  She still had that same energy and was still beautiful and smart and bright and laughed so much.  Here we were adults and able to share stories - mostly hers with Mary Ann and me listening.  Amazing to get her perspective, with no bitterness, on life in Evergreen, AL during all the days of segregation and then life during the time of the civil rights movement.  We had lived in the deepest of the deep south, she on the black side, Mary Ann and I on the white side.  She had loved Mother.  Even before this movie and this book, I've wanted to make some questions for an interview with her - and share it on this blog.

I'm going to do it one of these days.  She's a great story teller.  She has amazing stories!!  She and her sister together have amazing stories.

What I've been doing since the last post - Last week - getting my house and yard in order to prepare for Ada and John being with me, here at my house, for a week - while Laura Beth and Scott prepare to move into their cute rental house.

So - pictures from yesterday.  (I met LB and Scott in Adairsville.  Mary Bratton rode with me - the drive over was certainly different than the drive home.  On the way back to Scottsboro we had tired John and chatty, excited Ada in the back seat.  Mary saw my grandparenting world in full swing.)

Ada and John

I don't get a chance to post weekly photos of my grandchildren in McDonough, GA (south of Atlanta)

I'm going to link you up with Laura Beth's post.

There's been a potty crisis since Christmas - as in "FEAR" - and today the walls came tumbling down.

Ada's promised reward all along has been a makeup set which she picked out at some place.

With every "you-know-what" success, she was promised an hour of playing with the makeup.

Today she was able to have the makeup set a whole lot!

take a look:

http://adaupdates2.blogspot.com/2011/01/shouting-hallelujah.html

What Laura Beth didn't tell about in her post (I know because she texted or called with every victory, per my encouragement.  I wanted to hear!) is that at the most successful moment on the potty, her almost 1 year old John came WALKING into the bathroom.  He's taken 5 steps that I know of - perhaps a few more here and there - but Laura Beth said that it was as if he wanted to have a momentous event also - to share the glory and applause.  That is vintage human nature, isn't it???  So in walked John, to the bathroom - and the applause went from Ada's success to John's achievement.  All on the floor of a bathroom.  Isn't that the life of a mother????  A classic moment.

Here's John, but not walking.  It's a blog post following his pediatric checkup:

http://adaupdates2.blogspot.com/2011/01/johns-nine-month-appointment-at-11.html

That's all for this post.  So thrilled for LB (who had the same fears when she was 3 and we prayed the same prayers in 1985 that she's been praying in 2010-11)