Love You Aunt Mary
“Grandma, when is Mary coming home?”
“Aunt Mary.” For some reason, Jet doesn’t seem to be able to place the word “aunt” before Mary. She doesn’t have that problem with her other Aunts and Uncles. “Aunt Mary will come for a visit in a few weeks. I think she is planning a sleepover with you.”
“Three grandma days and 2 school days and then she’ll come home?”
“No, it’s much longer than that. Nine grandma days or so, I think.”
“I don’t want it to be so long.”
“Aunt Mary lives far away now. She has to ride in the car a long time to come and see us, but she’ll see you as much as she can.”
“But I don’t want her to live so far away! Why does she have to live far away?”
“Because she had to go to Virginia for work.” Jet gave me a disgruntled look. “You can talk to her on the phone and if you like, you can send her a letter.”
“Yes! I can write ‘I love you’ to her!”
“Okay. Let me get what you need.” I got paper and a large pencil. “Do you want me to write it out so you can copy it?”
“No, just tell me the letters.” Jet wrote slowly and carefully and added her name.
Painting a Big Heart
“Do you want to color something to go with it?”
“Paint! Let’s get out the paints and I can make some beautiful pictures for her!” I spread a plastic cloth, paint shirt, brushes, paper and wipes. Jet started painting a big blue heart.
“You made a heart! I haven’t seen you paint a heart before!”
“I didn’t know if I could do it but I tried it and I could. How do you make green?”
Soon, Jet had mixed purple, green and orange and could tell me how it was done. We left four paintings drying on the porch that have now been sent on their way to Aunt Mary. Jet was content. I completely understand how she felt. It makes me happy to be able to reach out to Mary with a card or package too!
On our walk, we saw a jet airplane leaving a trail through the sky. “Oh my gosh, do you see that? What is that thing?”
Papa explained that it was a vapor trail left by the airplane. I reminded Jet that her daddy worked with airplane engines like that.
“No he doesn’t.”
“He does. He works for a company that makes airplane engines.”
“He doesn’t, he makes gas.”
“Gas? I don’t think so. Maybe you misunderstood.”
“He makes a utensil that makes gas. It’s a utensil. A utensil.” Jet waived her arms around dramatically. “It’s a thing you use. A utensil!”
“Hmmm. I’m not sure you understood him. You’ll have to ask him when you get home.”
Jet had absolutely no patience for my uncertainty. “I don’t want to hear any more about this! I am not going to argue with you about this now!”
I shut my gaping mouth and stifled a laugh. “All right then.” Discussion ended.
Making Purple
At Grandma's House: 