A Day with Elsa

 For grandparents, one on one time with our grandchildren is precious.  We invited Elsa over for a day with us and the day that worked for her was yesterday, her last day before school started.  She rode up with Arne from Palo Alto and we picked her up from him in front of the BART offices.  She had her latest birthday present with her and Arne tipped me off we might want to stop on the way home and get supplies.  She had an electric ice cream maker.  We stopped at Safeway and Elsa and I picked out the cream, the whole milk and a carton of fresh strawberries. As soon as we got home, we got right to it, popping the special metal ice cream bowl in the freezer and crushing the strawberries, mixing up the ingredients and put them in the frig to chill.  Then I suggested we make sugar cookies.  I know Elsa likes them a lot, so I thought it would be fun to make them for our picnic.  She suggested we halve the recipe, which was an exercise in fractions, no problems until we got to the one egg.  “I don’t know how to make half an egg,” I said.  “Oh I do,” said Elsa and she began her process of whisking the egg and then pouring half into a measuring cup.  I thought she was pretty smart.  Later, she confessed she’d never done that and I decided she is even smarter than I thought.  

As the cookies baked, we went outside and I tossed the volleyball to her.  She loves hitting the ball back.  It is good practice for grandma too, catching all those hits.  When we finished this, we checked out my shell collection and my jewelry (she loves to look at those things).  Then it was time to start the ice cream maker.  It is nifty how it is electric so you don’t have to churn it. After 15 minutes or so, it was a thick slurry.   We tasted it and it was creamy and delicious.  I thought it would be good to have dessert before our picnic lunch.  We packed up Bob’s new picnic basket that he won in the church raffle and off we went to the Botanical Garden.  It was a lovely picnic lunch.  Bob remarked how nice it is that Elsa is so chatty.  She told us about her friends, her new schedule for school and pretty much anything we asked got a long involved response.  I am impressed how polite and sensitive Elsa is and she seemed to be really enjoying the day. 

Home again, we hit some more volleyball.  This time she most tactfully showed me how she wanted me to toss the ball throwing it out from my chest with my elbows sticking out like wings.   I learned the move pretty quickly, I thought.  Then we started on the art project I’d planned.  We moved the art table outside, covered it with newspapers and began our finger painting.  It was interesting how differently each of us did it.  I seemed stuck on swirls and loops while she covered the paper with copious paint and then blotted it with paper towels.  I was impressed with her originality.  We both got deeply involved in the creative process and both of us were surprised how it wasn’t as messy as we thought it would be.  After a while, I needed to stop for a cup of tea.  My energy had run out.  When I got back, I saw Elsa’s had too.  She was sitting on the steps painting her legs with the purple paint.  I asked what she was doing and she answered she wanted to see how it felt to be purple.  I was glad at this point there was she was the only grandchild here.  She covered her legs completely.  She was purple!    It must have felt really good because the finger paint had an amazing thick slimy feel on our hands.  So I suggested she go show grandpa her purpleness which she did and then I squirted her with the hose until all the purple washed off into the garden.  Perhaps that was the hit of the day- becoming purple.  Clean again, we went into the house and played games of Boggle.  All too soon, our time was over and we hugged and I waved goodbye as Bob took her back down to Oakland and Arne.  It was a lovely fun filled day.  I enjoyed every minute and as always I am so very impressed with Elsa and very happy to spend time with her.