Rebecca tells me that when she and Nathaniel try to put the girls to bed, Esme now says: But I just woke up! And she wonders where Esme may have 'picked this up'. Well I think they - Esme and her twin sister Baya - are about two of the smartest little girls on the planet, so when it comes to snappy come-backs, she is only 26 months old -please keep in mind, and chatters like a magpie, which means she can have a totally great conversation with you, and therefore, why would she NOT come up with snappy little come backs is more my question? Please excuse the run-on whatever. And the rest - I have brag rights, I am one of their grandparents, I am supposed to be like this.

Oh today Esme wanted to go to 'see Nana and Poobah who live in the brown house'. She told Rebecca this after we had a very sweet cell phone conversation and we both admitted our undying love for one another, and she told me she wanted to see Poobah and LuLu and Maxx and so forth. That is the whole group in this house and before you know, she went on to say she wanted to see Grandmom and Grandpop, who live just around the corner, four times... that is how directions work in NH.

And my conversation with Baya; she starts with a giggle and a Nana? Yes, I say, it is me, your own nana. I love you she whispers to me, and my eyes are filled with tears, and I am glad we are whispering because I don't want her to her me crying. She will not let go of the cell phone voluntarily and screams bloody murder when she must. It rips my heart out hearing this, even after I promise her she can talk to nana again right after I talk to ZZ, and although she says ok, she still hates to give up the phone, give up my voice on the magical little machine. I know how she feels, how ZZ feels. It is our lifeline.

It was very bad on me, very hard, just me missing them. but it is purgatory since they have begun to miss me. This is worst than anything I could have ever imagined. They feel terrible, and are begging to see me. They are reminding their mama where we live - the brown house! That little monkey is trying to lead her folks up here, as though she thinks perhaps the problem is maybe they have just forgotten how to come here.

And what expressive little toddlers these are, able now, suddenly it seems to me, to talk and tell me everything they want to tell me. With expression and excitement. Their only frustration with me is I am hard of hearing, Baya whispers (well I did do that too, starting a long long time ago, whispering "i love you" in their tiny newborn ears...), and they can also call out loudly enough to make the glass in our windows shake. They charm me no matter what they do, I must admit.

I wish they were old enough to come here for a little vacation by themselves, but that will be a year or two, I would guess. But I still do look forward to that event. I think we will have lots of fun, and have already thought of some special places to go. The Friendly Farm is a family tradition, that we must visit. The Stonewall Farm has wonderful gardens, and some special horses like the Budweiser horses, I think they may be Belguim horses, with huge feet, but these are solid tan, with white manes. They seem to have clopped off the pages of a Tolkein book just waiting to amaze Baya and Esme. They love visiting with 'Bea', the horse across the road, and the thing that impressed me the most was how eager Baya was to climb aboard Bea. She was pretty clear about it, using her early request style: ' Baya uppy???" Oh what a sight, that little darling, her desire to sit on Bea, so strong. Bea towers over my head.

These little girls also are climbers. I don't know, their mama was a climber too, and for years - about 1 1/2 years she looked like I beat her daily. I have a bunch of photographs of one boo-boo or another, and they all broke my heart and make me feel like A BAD MOTHER. More likely a slow mother. Not able to realize that things could happen to a little child faster than a blink. Once a dog wagged its' tail, and knocked Rebecca off the sidewalk. she burst out bleeding from her head, just awfully badly. Now I am - was anyway - a devoted walker, and where I walked I walked with Rebecca. She liked to walk also.

So we were kinda out of our own turf when this happened, and I looked around, and saw no one, had no supplies to help clean this wound and see if Rebecca needed to go to the emergency room or what, and so I did the only thing I could think of. I marched up to the closest doorbell and rang it. No answer, although a person peeked out the curtains, may he now be leading a happy life in a dumpster somewhere.... ha, just kidding, he didn't know... but I was/am so protective about 'my' family. I guess it takes becoming a parent to appreciate that fierce sense of protection which I think most feel for their children.

Anyway, the story moves on to a happier doorbell next door; we were offered Juicy Juice, at the time, the only '100% real juice', which always had a tranquilizing effect on Rebecca. She sat on our Good Samaritans' kitchen table and calmly let me clean her wound, which was mostly just for show as it turned out. She was very bloody looking, but had about a one inch little scratch. From a sweet St. Bernard who was owned by these people and thank the dear good Lord was up to date on its' Rabies Vaccinations. Whoa, that would have been a very different story.

Next day Rebecca awoke with the blackest eye; circling her beautiful sky blue eyes, well it was quite a look, and had to be photographed for posteritys' sake. And possibly to protect me against a criminal case of child abuse. Because within a month, she was climbing ( remembering Rebeccas' 2nd generation climbing twins?). And a new error of terror had begun. Finding her halfway up bookcases, on top of cars outside, if you turned your eyes from her for two minutes - it was one minute too long. She walked off my childhood girlfriends' picnic table, and Debbie couldn't believe she did it in front of both of us. I mean Deb raised four kids, just fine, and me, an only mother, but klunk, and boom, and whoops, she just walked right off that table.

Funny thing about this anecdote. I remember she was wearing the most adorable white eyelet lace sundress, backless, with precious white sandles and white socks. Oh she looked like a bloody ragged angel when we left, her poor Lord & Taylor sundress, worn just twice, and about to be thrown away... it was torn across the fabric, not the seams and I couldn't fix it at all. Oh silly silly silly; how I begged my mother not to buy such expensive clothes for a baby who was outgrowing them every few months.

Her response? How can you deny a dying woman her only pleasure??? I said, "You mean to say your only pleasure is buying clothes for Rebecca?" And she said, Well I like buying them for me too! She was amazing, my mother, when it came to the snappy comeback, and I have come full circle with the following question: Can the snappy comeback be genetic? Like those curls? If you haven't ever seen Miss Esmes' curls, you've missed one of the wonders of the world. She comes by these gifts natually is my humble opinion, and I have lots of opinion, humble or otherwise. I think of them more as ideas, but no one else does.

This post is dedicated to my son-in-law Nathaniel for being the most amazing dada i can think of; he works very hard as an architect and then spends his weekends as a fulltime dada while Rebecca is working. Now I could have dedicated this to Rebecca, but at this moment I am thinking about the mostly 100 weekends, 200 days, averaged out, that Nate has spent with his twin daughters, from birth, sharing their care. I adore my son-in-law, and my daughter. I feel really lucky to have such fine fine 'kids' that brought such fine fine grandchildren in this world as a gift for us in our old age. Oh, did they have another reason???

For the first few weeks of life, I was allowed to stay with R,N,E, & B, from coming home from the hospital, until it was time to let someone else have some fun with the twins and let someone else help out. Helping out was the most wonderful thing you could imagine doing. I am so so grateful that my health lasted long enough to allow me to help. My thing now, is visiting. I will end and just tell you this.

I have wept, which is rather Victorian. I have cried, a lot, it's the usual. But when I drive away from RI, leaving my beloved
little family behind, I cry so hard, that I drive around the corner, and have to stop the car before I can pull myself together enough to leave again. Oh, it is terrible to leave them; ZZ won't even say goodbye. I know how she feels. I just say, I will see you very soon. And she turns her back on me. She knows how long it will be. And Baya? She just doesn't want to let go, just wants to hug. And the worse sounds I ever heard coming out of my own self were after they - Nate, Mama, the twins, were here for several days, and finally had to pack up everything and go home. And I stood in the driveway or window and waved and waved and then I didn't see their car. And I started howling like a crying dog. Crying and howling like a beast. I am crying again to think of it, and this is my conclusion.

I want us all to live in the same town. but we don't even live in the same state, so I am not sure where or how that begins. And I have some thoughts: how long will the twins think we are wonderful? Before realizing their friends and school and other activities are way more interesting than going to drive forever to see the old farts in the country! Although dear Rebecca assures me they will always want to come here. Well what is she going to say? She is always saying wonderful things, she is a very good -kind, thoughtful, and even more - the best daughter I could have ever hoped for.