A Blast From The Past

It was a quiet summer day. No, wrong lead in sentence. It was a hot and loud summer day with many bangs. Our daughter and son-in -law had new

hardwood floors installed on the main floor of their home yesterday so Jenn and Baby Jack spent from 8:30 to 4:30 at our house which meant that there was more activity than normal at the retirement home. Then the doorbell rang and we learned that our next door neighbor needed to run an errend and could we watch her daughter and her daughter's playmate. So into the house marched two of the cutest little kids who will be in first grade this year. Well, do we still have toys for kids that age? No indeed. So we turned Baby Jack into a toy. Something like Baby Elmo and Sponge Bob Squarepants rolled into one. Or rather like Baby Elmo and Sponge Bob Wet Diaper rolled into one. That kept them amused for about five minutes. Then we used Baby Jack's shapes ball to do a lesson on do you know your shapes? The pentagon and the hexagon threw them for a loop though they both had heard of that big military building right outside D.C. called The Pentagon. Another ten minutes elapsed. Then I noticed the little tuffets that Jack made me for our wing chairs by the fireplace so I got the bright idea to have them act out Little Miss Muffet Sat On A Tuffet. That was pretty cute. Little Miss Muffet ate her curds and whey and then along came Spiderman to chase her away. This inspired the very bright and talkative little boy to give us a demonstration of all his Tai Kwando moves. Well this kid knows his stuff and we got quite a demonstration. I'm just glad he didn't put his little foot through our big screen TV. At that point someone said that they hadn't had breakfast or lunch or dinner today. Someone else said that they couldn't have had supper because it was still morning. So we found the peanut butter and jelly and orange juice to quench their appetites. The PBandJ was a winner. The orange juice was not because it had pulp. At that point they discovered our swing in the backyard and wanted to go swing in it. Just then the doorbell rang once more and we were literally saved by the bell because in walked our neighbor to pick them up just when we were getting into the swing of things so to speak!

Final thought: Did I have and raise two little babies? And did I teach first grade for eight years? Well, that must have been in a previous life because I sure don't remember all the details of what I once did. So the day was literally a blast from the past.

But little did we know that our exciting day was not finished yet. For once more the doorbell rang and we discovered a young seventeen year old man on our doorstep to remind us of past teenage encounters. We learned that he wanted to join the navy and become a pilot and he could do all these things if we could help him earn enough points in his youth program by buying some books. What? And what again? Well, it was too hot outside for an explanation on our doorstep so we invited him to step in and explain this at the kitchen table which he did. Kitchen tables were meant for talks with teenagers. You can look at the table when you don't want to look at each other. So after some looking and listening we bought some books to help him out and to give us a little tax write off for next year. Again Baby Jack was the ice breaker by just being the happy baby that he usually is. But this time we skipped the shapes and nursery rhymes and all the rest although I bet this young man would have enjoyed a Tai Kwando demonstration while having a PBandJ.