February 12, 1918 - January 28, 2008

That's a pretty long time, no? My grandmother Jackson passed away this afternoon after almost 90 years on this earth. She was only in bad health the last few years of her life and was fortunate to have not really been sick her whole life. She taught me some of the finer things in life: pretty little dresses that she made for me from the time I was born and love for the Hogs. When I think of her, I think of her house out in Woodlawn and her sitting during Razorback basketball games and slapping her hands together when they didn't play well. I remember having to make sure that, after Neall and I spent time with her over the summer, we put the TV back on Channel 7 so that she could watch Ned Perme.

Good stuff. She is in a better place, one that we can we never even fathom. She is with her daughter--it's never fair to bury a child before you. She is with her children in law--who has two children in law die of the same stupid brain tumor? And they are happy and smiling watching all of us. Although we are all sad, it is consolation to know that they are healthy and happy. In a place with no cancer.

Also just like Uncle Neallio

Emmy has started twirling her hair when she is lying in bed. It's pretty cute but so funny to me because Neall is always twirling his hair. He even twirls Becca's hair! And our sweet Solomon has his first teeth! Apparently, our kids really like to get their teeth in early.

Papa came to visit yesterday and he and Emmy had fun passing her toys back and forth. We got home and she managed to conk out for a nap for the rest of his visit--boy, she's quite the hostess.

Good Morning

This morning, Emmy was awake when I went in the bedroom to get her and Dadoo up for the day. Just sitting in the bed, smiling and waiting on me. It was such a welcome sight since usually waking her up is a nightmare! As I came in, I called out, “Hi, Gorgeous” to her and got a “HI!” in return. From John.

Last night, I had a box in the living room that I need to wrap for a bridal shower this weekend and Emmy Ruth kept climbing all over it. I told John that she might be more like Uncle Neallio than we had known. He used to swing from Momma’s drapes, pull the kitchen drawers out to make stairs on to the countertops and play like Spiderman in the doorframes. Every time I would remove Emmy from the box, she was right back on top of it. She has turned into such a fun little monkey, I cannot wait until the weekend to spend more time with her.

Back to our regularly scheduled week...

Emmy had quite a busy weekend! I am trying to make room at our house for some of Momma's treasured items. With Papa and LynnLynn getting married soon, there are lots of pieces that belonged to Grandma Ruth that won't be going with them and I can't stand to part with them forever, so we are trying to make accommodations at our house. One thing was a chest that Grandpa Eddie gave Grandma on their one year anniversary. It has been in our living room for years so I brought it back with me Friday night. To make room for it, I got rid of the entertainment armoire and had to buy a new HDTV that would better fit on the chest. Just HAD to get it. So, Emmy and I left directly from work and the sitter's to go to Wynne. Neall got his old boy scout uniform out of it, as well as some war ration books, and left all the other mementos in it (I will have to go through that later--I just can't right now). We met the Nichols for Mexican food and Emmy had her first sucker! I was terrified that she would bit it into pieces and then choke on it, but she did okay. She almost kicked Uncle Neallios knee with excitement!!! Pictures are on Aunt Pat's blog.

So, Saturday the DirecTV people came to get the HD service set up. After that, we all went to eat at the BBQ shop (the only BBQ we can eat in Memphis--none of it is as good as Arkansas BBQ). NaNa feed Emmy lemons! She loved them and ate almost a half of a lemon by herself!

Monday, we had to return Papa's SUV (there was no way that chest was fitting in the Prius!) so we stopped to visit friends at Woodruff. Emmy was a little nervous at first, but loves the attention she gets. I can remember going to visit Daddy when I was a little girl so it is pretty neat taking her to visit now.

And then, I bumped her noggin. I brought YET another chest home with me yesterday. This was an older small white chest that Momma had in the kitchen for years, it used to belong to Grandma too. I think it will be great to keep all of Emmy's dress up stuff in when she is a little bigger. I was seeing what was inside and found two quilts. I can hear Momma now saying, "As your Grandma would say, I better not see this quilt in the bottom of some play pen one day". I thought the lid only went up so far on the chest and about that time, it went falling over and I just couldn't grab it fast enough and of course, it hit Emmy on the head. I could have absolutely just melted into the floor at that moment. I snatched her up and she wanted nothing to do with me and went straight to Dadoo. After several snares to me, he finally got her calmed down and we found a little bloody spot on her finger that he was able to fix up with a BandAid. Her head has a little red spot, but looks okay now. And, bless her heart, you can see a little tinge of blood on the knee of her PJ's. I am sure that John will keep these so that we will always remember me giving Emmy her first boo-boo.

Uh-Oh

The new favorite word around here is "uh-oh". Emmy will mimic me whenever I say it, which unfortunately is a lot, and it is pretty darn cute. But, the other two UH-OHs of the day are:

1. We shut the door to the kitchen to try to keep her out of there, mainly because of the stairs to the basement (yes there is a baby gate at the top of the stairs but just for that little extra sense of security we just try to keep her out of there if we aren't in there). Today, Emmy realized how to open the door and go into the kitchen.



2. I guess I had not had her wear this outfit yet because I was saving it for a special occasion but realized today that it was too small but I had hoped to get one wear out of it. It's quite short (and as you can tell, she has no toys so she has to play with the cat toys).



On the other end of Uh-Oh are my fabulous friends. Yesterday was of course a tough day for me, and two of my best friends sent me flowers. It's pretty special to have such good girl friends. I hope Emmy Ruth is as lucky one day.

Today

Of course Emmy has reached her little arms up for us to pick her up for a while now but recently she has added a new flair to it by clenching and unclenching her little fists when she does it. It's almost like she is saying, "Not only do I want you to pick me up, I really want you to love me oodles. I NEED YOU TO PICK ME UP." I really just love this new little twist she has thrown into it. So, this morning, as we were getting ready for the day and she stood there in her little lime green tights and her multicolored sweater and reached for me, I thought of Momma and wondered if she would have submitted to every one of Emmy's little demands like this. And I am pretty sure she would have. Her Grandma Diann would have too. John often says that if she were here, we might never even see Emmy--she would have taken her!

This marks two years for me to be without my mom and four years for John. Not a day goes by that I don't think of them and strangely, I still sometimes even pick up the phone to call Momma. But today, instead of grieving for the loss of two really fabulous grandmas, I will promise to submit to all of Emmy's little demands--just like they would have.

I won't even make her take a bath tonight.

Eleven Months

Here we are just one short month from our girl being a year old. Wow. At this time last year, I was convinced the doctors were off and I had to have my due date wrong and she would be here before the end of January. And at this time last year, I would leave every OB appointment shocked and amazed that I was not making any progress towards having this baby! But eleven months ago today, our sweet girl finally arrived. And today she is sitting beside me on the couch, eating toilet paper. Pretty much anything she can find, goes directly into her mouth. Especially dog and cat food. John and I just had to flip her upside down to recover a piece of Bill's dog food from her little tiny clenched jaws.

Now that she is walking like a pro, we have to keep an eye on her even more than normal. This morning, I turned around for a second and totally lost her in the house! She was in the bedroom hanging out. Emmy loves to point at everything and is constantly babbling.

One of my favorite things that she has started doing is clapping more than normal. We will be sitting in the living room and she will put something inside something else and when we clap, she claps with us. Emmy has clapped for months but now she "gets it". She and John's friend, we refer to him as Uncle Vic now, like to play peekaboo around the dining room table and she never gets tired of it. She and Dadoo have so much fun together. He is tickled that they have a new game called "Daddy Cave" when he gets on all fours and calls out "Daddy Cave!!!!!!!" and she goes running under him. It's pretty funny to see them, looking so much like each other, laughing and playing.

Yuck!

After ten days on antibiotics for a double ear infection, Emmy went back to the doctor yesterday with a horrible cold--and still had a double ear infection. The doctor put her on some pretty tough antibiotics to try and knock it out. Poor thing. She doesn't sleep well at all, and wakes up usually about 4am coughing and choking. We are pretty worried about her. Dadoo is home with her again today.

New Year's Eve Festivities

We had a big night on New Year's Eve with Emmy, Lucas and David. Oh yeah, and their parents were here too. Lucas showed up in his tuxedo so Emmy ran in to put on a dress with rhinestone buckles so that he wouldn't feel overdressed. Lucas spent lots of time on the quad and they spent lots of time together in the wagon. Here is to a fabulous 2008. We can hardly wait to see what we get into this year!

A Merry Chirstmas Indeed!

We started our Christmas festivities on Monday afternoon with a quick cruise in Emmy's car... Then we opened a few presents from Mama and Dadoo... And The Girl tired out pretty quickly... She even slept in until 9:30 Christmas morning! I had to go and wake her and Dadoo because I was so excited to open presents from Santa! Obviously, she got a few things...

Emmy was pretty excited with all of her gifts from the Big Bearded Guy.

I think Dadoo was more excited about her Quad than anything....

Emmy was not so thrilled with this velour ducky hooded blanket...

We went to see Solomon after a big breakfast at home. Young Sol is so sweet and chubby and just about as big as our Emmy.Dadoo was immediately put to work assembling toys...

He was obviously not working fast enough...

Before we left town, we went to visit Julia Jean. She is just adorable and nothing makes me think of Momma smiling more than when I visit Joy with OUR DAUGHTERS. Our Daughters. Ahh....the tears almost come just thinking of those two little words. Our Daughters. That is a pretty fabulous Christmas gift.
Since we had watched A Christmas Story all morning, it only seemed appropriate to put Emmy in a ducky suit since the kid in the story had to wear his bunny suit on Christmas morning. Emmy was equally as thrilled.

Doesn't get much better than this...

We had a big holiday party day yesterday. We went to Little Rock to see John's extended family and then last night went to a Christmas party with Tara's family. The munchkins had a great time and, well, it just can't get much better than this.

Gearing up for Santa!

Even though I am sure Emmy has no clue what is going on with Santa and the elves and all the fun and magical things to come, it is hard to not get excited for our first Christmas with her. I think I am more giddy at the idea of having almost an entire week at home with her than I am about anything else.

Emmy helped me open a very special gift from a very special friend the other night. I guess the pink Santa shirt made her think she should help out!

Christmas Wear 2007

Since we had the mad rush to get all of our Halloween things worn before the holiday, we should have known that Christmas would be just as bad! Here is Emmy Saturday at IHOP (in the outfit Papa got her!) and Sunday. She also had on a different Christmasy dress for church on Sunday but I didn't get a pic. Bad mama.

And everyone needs a good pair of bunny slippers when they are WALKING around this house when it is this cold don't they???

Ten Months Old

Today, The Girl is ten months old. I simply can't believe it. Last night as I was going to sleep, I cried to myself, wondering, "am I getting all of this??" Am I not worrying about the non-critical things so that I can catch all of the precious things Emmy is doing that will never happen again? I hate to admit it, but I am missing so many moments--just slow down! One of these days, Emmy won't sit on our bed and then fall backwards and just crumble into laughter. Or she won't still be sleeping in our bed and curl up under her daddy's armpit (God only knows why in the world she would want to be there) or we won't have to keep dragging her back down because she has srunched up again to the headboard. I am always getting songs stuck in my head and lately, that Stevie Wonder song, "Isn't She Lovely" keeps ringing so true. Or I will sing "Every Little Thing She Does is Magic" to Emmy sometimes and she looks at me as if I am insane!

You might have noticed that I haven't put many pictures in here lately. Apparently, Emmy has learned she wants the camera. So while trying to get pics of her in front or near the tree, we got a lot of this before we finally had success. And then, I guess the tree limb must have tickled her because she is making the goofiest face.

Every day, Emmy looks more and more like her Daddy. She has the sweetest laugh in the world and gets into the habit of saying one word over and over. One day it will be "mamamamamamam" and then "dadadadadadadada" and then "mimimimimimimi" (her babysitter). She has started actually giving hugs now. I love, love, love, love her tiny arms wrapped around me in the sweetest hug that ever was.

Now, if I can only get her to enjoy wearing tights and taking baths...

Emmy, the walker

I can't believe it, but The Girl has taken her first steps. For the past few days, she has taken a step here or there unassisted but Sunday she took off across the living room. Of course, crawling is still her favorite mode or transportation, as she is quite a speedster on all fours. Hope to have pics or videos soon. I just can't believe it.

First comedy routine

Yesterday, Emmy and I went to Wynne to met the before mentioned Julia Jean. She is just adorable! And all that hair! Just precious. Neall and Solomon met us at Papa's house and so did Pat and Jean and her family. It was very bittersweet being with everyone. At one point, I was sitting in the recliner trying to feed a diaper clad Emmy her turkey and rice and Neall was in the back changing young Sol's messy diaper. Jasmine was running around madly, Daddy was somewhere in the kitchen and Pat just came on in the house. It struck me like a slap across the face how normal it would have seemed for Momma to just come dancing down the hall at any moment.

We got home and visited with Grandad at our house for a bit before he headed back to Jonesboro and then we enjoyed a nice, quiet night at home. When we got into bed, Emmy performed her very first comedy routine. It was hysterical! She was sitting up and she would kind of look over her shoulder and then just fall backwards on the bed and then grin. Of course, I would laugh and the more I laughed the more she did it! Like every good comedian, it seems, she did go on a little too long with this and by the end of her 30 minute routine, I don't think I could have faked another chuckle. This kid is a mess! It was quite funny and I love to see her little toothy grin!

Julia Jean

Decking the halls

Well, Emmy wasn't so helpful in putting up the Christmas tree but she is a pretty little decoration. When I finally got the tree up, Emmy crawled under it and curled up in a little sleepy ball. Of course, I ran like mad through the house to find my camera and had no luck. John, in an effort to keep me from crying every time I talk about the missed photo, keeps hiding her toys under the tree to try and lure her back into position. He's so good to me, but it hasn't worked yet.

Elfed

So, I am sure that everyone will have seen one of these a million times before the holiday is over, but here is ours. So funny. John is going to strangle me.

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1175671567

December 5th

This morning Emmy Ruth was a nightmare to get going. Of course, she is back in our bed, so after I got ready and did some light chores around the house, I went to wake her and her Dadoo for the day. Seriously. The girl not only looks just like him, she is just as bad to wake for the day. Thankfully, with her, I can just pick her up finally and get her going--not so easy with John. This morning as she whined and flipped and flopped and finally rolled over with her bum straight up in the air, I said a little prayer, knowing that Momma is watching all of this and hoping that I can be as good of a mom to Emmy as Momma was to me.

Then I grabbed her up, got lots of good snuggle time and did the hurried morning dance of getting everyone dressed and out the door. Thank goodness the girl wears pink all the time because there are traces of Amoxicillan on all of her clothes! Hopefully this round of it will take care of her ear infection. I also ordered a book on homeopathic ear infections treatments. I never would have imagined me with homeopathic treatments and being the "greenest" person I know. Shesh...