THE LOWE FAMILY NEWSLETTER: VOLUME 112 JANUARY 2017

HAPPY NEW YEAR ! HEALTH AND HAPPINESS IN 2017

Dear Readers,

Thanksgiving was very special this year as baby Ray Carson spent his first one at Grandma's house - of course his parents were there too! He also flew for the first time and was a model passenger according to his proud and dotting parents. Prior to their arrival a box of diapers, especially made for babies with delicate skin, arrived at my home and a mattress for the pack n' play because she said the one provided by the manufacturer was not cushy enough for baby Ray - this she knew from experience. The family had spent a couple of nights at family friends Jaimie and Skylars in Sarasota and apparently Ray protested loudly through out the night about the poor substitute for his crib. I asked if there was anything food wise I could provide for him but they were bringing his food with them to make sure his delicate indigestion system was not thrown out of balance by Grandma's usual food offerings to her grandchildren. She did ask me to buy a container of whole milk, plain, Greek yogurt. I checked at my grocery store , rows of Greek yogurt in every flavor imaginable except plain and whole milk was only available in vanilla - which I would say was plain but doubted that Leslee-Ann would agree. I drove to one of those fancy overpriced organic whole food stores and sorted through rows of low fat, no fat plain yogurt and finally spied one marked whole milk and rushed up to the counter with it only to be sarcastically thanked by the cashier for my big purchase of the day! Snotty place! I resolved to try Aldi's next time! Unfortunately Leslee -Ann pointed out that although the yogurt was plain and whole milk it was not Greek! Obviously it's all Greek to me!

Ray is so fair skinned with white blonde hair and eyes that are not noticeably Asian: he does not physically resemble his mother in any way. He is a miniature Craig for sure! However he definitely reminded me of his mother as a baby in attitude. Ray likes to be the center of attention and changes from a happy, adorable Ray into a loudly demanding Ray calling 'Mama' repeatedly until someone pays attention to him again! However Ray also likes to dictate the terms of the kind of attention he welcomes, he definitely prefers a slow introduction to new people and was not pleased with Owen's enthusiastic hug and big kiss planted firmly on his lips. He loudly protested this invasion of his privacy. Thankfully Ava Claire was more restrained in her welcome!

Ava Claire and Owen were drawn like a magnet to their baby cousin: Ava Claire offered him toys, Owen took them away, using physical force whether necessary or not! We all tried to rein him in as Ray became more upset by his aggressive playmate but Leslee-Ann and Craig quickly whisked him away for nap time to the safety of his pack'n'play upstairs in their room! I was amused to see Craig sorting through a toy basket before Owen's arrival another day in case there was something that might do mortal damage to his son if wielded by his terror of a nephew! A wooden hammer was placed high on the mantle!

Leslee-Ann has an established routine of naps, feedings, play times and daily baths – I did wonder if a daily bath was best for a baby prone to ecxema but wisely kept my thoughts to myself. I never managed to get any of my children into a routine at all ! The only thing she hasn't been able to regulate is his bowels which sometimes do not move for a few days and cause him to be even more demanding of his parents attention.

Ray Carson 

At their house they have a no flushing the toilet after Ray's bedtime rule and I wondered if we were going to have to adhere to that rule here, especially tough on Sarah and Sean who use the upstairs bathroom by their bedroom most of the time too. After testing it out Leslee-Ann thought the sound barrier was better in my house so gave permission to flush after eight. But we were not allowed to speak in anything above a whisper during his nap times and the television volume had to be so low that it wasn't audible to me! After a couple of hours of Leslee-Ann shushing us all every time we moved or spoke we decided to spend Ray's nap times downstairs. Very stressful with Ava Claire and Owen who have no idea about playing quietly at Grandma's!

Mealtimes were interesting when Owen was around. When we eat in the dinning room he usually prefers to sit on my lap and eat from my plate, preferably with my fork but on seeing Ray in his high chair he immediately tried to climb up it and doubtless push his cousin to the floor! Ava Claire insisted on sitting next to baby Ray so she could help feed him.

Ray slept well his first night at Grandma's, and Leslee-Ann was convinced that the new mattress was responsible, the second night we all heard Ray voicing his disapproval of his sleeping arrangements a couple of times and by the third night he was in the bed with mama, dad was in my English Country bedroom and Sarah and Sean were fully convinced that children are not in their immediate future, sleep being a high priority on their list.

Once Thanksgiving was over, I immersed myself in Christmas preparations, determined to have the decorations up inside and outside, all my shopping completed, wrapped, tagged and mailed if necessary by December 12^th as I was going to be babysitting Ava Claire and Owen for an entire week while their parents vacationed with Jeremy's family on Peters Island, in the British Virgin Islands. I knew doing anything other than maybe writing a few Christmas cards would be too much of a challenge with them around. I picked them up from pre-school early Monday afternoon for their vacation at Grandma's house and Coryn came by after work with a weeks worth of clothes for them (Grandma had already bought a few new outfits in case my washing machine broke down or something) and then she headed home to sleep before she and Jeremy left at three in the morning for the airport with a full day of traveling to their destination.

I had set the pack n' play up in my bedroom with the mattress Leslee-Ann had left behind and hoped Owen would sleep in it while Ava Claire slept in my bed with me. Owen threw a temper tantrum when he awoke and realized he was not in my bed so I grabbed him out of the pack n' play and popped him in the bed between Ava Claire and myself. Unfortunately he was not delighted to be sharing the bed with his sister and woke her up rolling into and over her in an effort to push her out of the bed. Ava Claire finally asked if she could sleep in his bed so I put her in and peace was restored. She slept there for six nights in a row! The children woke me every morning with either Ava Claire climbing out of the pack n'play onto my bed or Owen leaving my bed to climb into the pack n' play to wake his sister up. They actually spent long periods of time scrambling in and out of it using my bed as a launching pad. I hoped all the activity would wear them out at least as it was bitterly cold the entire time they were here and we only left the house once to go to the grocery store.

The grocery store was another adventure, where they both rode the quarter horse and insisted on sitting in that cumbersome two kid sized shopping card. Unfortunately Owen got bored in the check out lane and I made the mistake of taking him out of the cart and putting him by my side. As I was using my credit card , he grabbed the shopping cart filled with most of my bagged groceries, pushed it out of the check out lane and started spinning it around in circles with his sister still sitting in it. I tried to chase him down but he took off with it and almost made it to the door before I could grab him and return for my remaining bags of groceries. He was delighted with himself and gave all the customers in line behind me something to talk about. I was mortified that an eighteen month old could push the cart around better than I could and he couldn't even reach the handle bar! And yes children: none of you would have behaved like that in public at any age but Grandma seems to have lost all control of her charges.

A couple of days into their stay a box arrived on my porch and the kids were very excited. Ava Claire immediately asked if it was something for them but no, it was for me: a Christmas gift from Marc Andrew. I opened it up to quell the children's curiosity, finding a smaller box with a picture of a snowman on it. I realized that it was an inflatable. For years, some of my sons have tormented me with the threat of gaudy plastic blow up lawn decorations appearing overnight in my front yard and I have made it very clear that I would immediately and permanently deflate them. I herded the children down stairs thinking I could inflate it in the area which has become their playroom rather than my entertainment space. I quickly read the instructions, pulled it out of the box and plugged it in. I was expecting something about three feet high and was alarmed to see the snowman's head threatening to take out my newly painted ceiling before he was even fully inflated! I quickly pulled the plug and was immediately treated like a spoilsport by my very confused grandchildren. I explained that Frosty was a lot bigger than Grandma thought so I would have to find another spot for him. I was certainly not going to have him next to my towering Martha Stewart Christmas tree for all to see so I decided to put him out on the deck. It was too cold for the children to be out so I told them to watch me from inside. I bundled up, grabbed the cording supplied with the snowman and found some concrete blocks and bricks under the deck which I hauled up to attach to the snowman . Every time I left Owen's sight he screamed – even though I was back in thirty seconds every time. Very stressful. Once Frosty was secure I plugged him in and watched him grow to gigantic proportions, I had to hurriedly drag my outside dinning set out of the way of his growing bulk. Ava Claire and Owen were fascinated with the whole process, especially that evening when it became dark and Frosty was fully lit up from inside – I wasn't expecting that and worse a wind had sprung up and with his raised arm Frosty appeared to be waving at all the rush hour traffic on Quivera. I immediately wondered if he would prove such a distraction that it might cause an accident: would I be held responsible? As the wind continued to blow harder Frosty was dancing on the deck, so terrified that he might fly across Quivera like a Zeppelin, I pulled his plug. Owen was furious with me! He ran back and forth from the kitchen and family room windows, frantically gesticulating at Frosty who had melted to nothing before his eyes! I tried to convince him that Frosty was taking a nap but he obviously didn't think he needed one. He was besotted with that oversized, tasteless plastic yard decoration all week and was very unhappy when I put him away after the holidays. He still looks for it every time he visits!

Unfortunately Owen came down with a cold mid week, making him even more needy of my attention. I was glad that I had picked up a couple of extra snap and play Disney princesses with new accessories that Ava Claire played with for hours daily.

Sarah was away on a business trip for much of the time and unfortunately Sean had sinus issues so wasn't feeling very well, virtually going to bed as soon as supper was finished. Once Sarah returned it was great to have an extra person around to entertain them, she and Sean made a gingerbread village with them and had movie nights with hot cocoa and plenty of yummy snacks while I zoned out for a few hours with my Ipad. Kay pitched in too, picking up McDonalds one night(just a block from my conveniently located house ) and then cooking an excellent Sunday lunch. Owen loved the casserole she made, he ate three helpings which was great as his cold had definitely negatively impacted his appetite but not his activity level.

Coryn and Jeremy picked the children up about ten thirty Sunday night probably as tired as sleeping Ava Claire and a needing to sleep Owen. I slept for at least ten hours that night and woke up with a cold. Sarah and Sean came down with it too. I accomplished nothing that week except getting some Christmas cards in the mail, having never found time to do so while babysitting. I spent Christmas Eve with Coryn and Jeremy and stayed through Christmas dinner. Jeremy had stayed up until four thirty in the morning assembling an enormous three story doll house for Ava Claire. There was an massive mound of presents around the tree, stretching out in front of the fireplace where the dollhouse was placed front and center for Ava Claire to see on Christmas morning along with a battery powered car for Owen and a very noisy rocking horse. There was a treasure chest full of dress up clothes for Ava Claire, dolls everywhere, and lots of balls for Owen and these were just the unwrapped gifts! No wonder it took a minute or so for Ava Claire to zoom in on her doll house! She has played with is every day since and it is still sitting in front of the fireplace. How well I remember the days when my girls were not going to have toys all over their house! Both of them have toys in virtually every one of their carefully put together rooms! Motherhood has certainly changed their priorities!

Sarah's sister, Candace and her boyfriend, Eric came to stay with us with for about a week including New Years Eve. They live in Maine and she is working on a PHD in genetics at Kay's undergraduate school, Tufts in Boston, so the two of them had something in common. Jaimie and Skylar were also visiting Kansas City so they joined us New Years Eve for an evening of snacking and watching the ball drop together, the most company I have had in years on that occasion!

My house was definitely the liveliest in the cul-de-sac this past holiday season as once again my room occupancy soared with all my guests. I already have bookings for Spring when my great friends Becky, Evelyn and Sherry are coming! Better make your reservations now children before I am fully booked for 2017! Love Mother