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Old Barns And Old People

Those Special Phone Calls

Chloe has always loved to talk on the phone even when she was just starting to crawl. She would play with her toy phones and jabber on it just like she has seen the adults do. We would always laugh when she did this from such a young age.

As she grew older she didn't want to talk on the play phones as much, but she would find our cell phones and act like she was talking on them.

When she didn't know how to unlock them to talk on them she would complain that she couldn't talk on it to someone else. So we would call some of her cousins and let her talk on the phone to them and her mommy and this would satisfy her.

Well now that she is seven she likes to call at night just before she goes to bed and have her "special" little talks with Poppy (me), to which I love to get. She doesn't call every night but on the nights that she does they are so special to me.

Tonight I got a call and I thought that it was Debby calling me and when I answered the phone it showed that Mimi was calling and I knew that Chloe was using her Mimi's phone to call me.

The first thing that she always ask me is what are you doing and where are you at. If I'm at home she wants to know where I'm at so that she can see in her mind as we talk.

"Guess what?," I'm going to be in a play at school, "Great," I say. "What is the name of the play your going to be in." Silence on the line..., "I'm not sure yet, but the teacher will let us know on Friday."  "Do you think that I can do it Poppy?" "Sure," I said, "Whenever we play Barbies you and I we are always play acting and you do that so well." "I guess so Poppy." "Well Poppy we can talk more about this when I find out on Friday." "Ok, Poppy," "Sure"

"Poppy, you don't have to pick me up on Friday from school because Mimi is going to be here and she is going to pick me up."  "Will you miss me on Friday?" "I sure will sweety."

"Poppy, do you know how old Jessica (a cat) is?" No," I said. "She is seven years old today so I am older than she is, what do you think about that?" "Wow, that is amazing." I said. "You know she likes mommy better than she does me and Mimi." "Why is that?," I ask. "Because she was Mommy's first cat and she was around mommy longer." I then ask about her other cats, Max and Belle. We get into a lengthy conversation about these two cats and what they like to get into.

I ask her did she have any homework today and she said, "Poppy you know that I did and that I do it just as soon as I get home so the rest of the night before bed I can play."

"Poppy," "Do you want to know what we did in school today." "Sure," I answered. "We had to write a story about what we did at Thanksgiving and dray a picture to match what we wrote about." I was glad that me and you had already done something like this at Halloween because she said I did really great." "And that I spelled Thanksgiving, Grandmother, turkey, dressing all correctly." "Can you believe that." "Sure," I said, "knowing that you are so smart." Awe Poppy." hehehe....

"I'm going to call you again tomorrow, is that ok." "Sure I love for you to call me anytime." Ok Poppy, I'll call you tomorrow, Bye.

She is a true Gemini, just like me when she is finished she is ready to hang up and start on something else.

I'm sure you can tell by now who has me wrapped around their finger.

Happy Day's Are Here Again

Thanksgiving Break

Maybe you remember the school "Holiday Breaks," and how you looked forward to the extra days off to spend time just doing what you want to do.

Chloe has looked forward to this break since the first of school. Yes she has had a day off for Labor Day and for President's Day but that is not the same to a young child as are the four days at Thanksgiving and the two weeks at Christmas time.



You get to sleep in late and play all day long. You get to stay up late and just have fun being a kid. Sometimes I think she tries to find out out much she can wrap Poppy around her finger, but that's ok she is only going to be little once.

She loves to get me to play Barbies with her. I can't say that I have ever really learned to play dolls, but she keeps asking me to play so I must be doing something right.

I asked her all the time, "How do you play Barbies?" And she always replies, "Poppy you play Barbies just like you and I play together." You talk about things together and you do thing like you do in real life."

So I line up the Barbies and make a runway with material. I tell Chloe that she is to be the Director and set up everything that we are to do in our Runway Photo Shoot. She chooses what doll will be on the runway and what dress that they will be wearing. I take the doll down the runway and say that Megan(the doll) has hair done by Marci' and a gown designed by Chloe' and shoes by Itali' and jewerly by Kay's.

I look over at Chloe' and see that she is smiling and giving me a thumbs up. She gives me feed back on how it was and how it can be improved. Hey if this is all I have to do we can play Barbies real well together, All it take is a lot of imagination and a little work and she is have the time of her life.

It like a role reversal:  "Instead of the old teaching the young, The young are teaching the old."

"Poppy I just love how you play barbies with me. You make it so interesting and I have so much fun. Now that's what I call Icing on my Cake Day.

Behind Chloe you can see her art work on the wall that I can never remove. It is so original and who could ever erase a "I Love You."

















Poppy let's rest awhile and play something else and the we can come back and play some more Barb-bies.

I think that we will take a little time now to do a little work in Chloe's Journal. She draw picture of what she has done thus far today and made some notes as well and about what she want to do later on in the day. She smiles at doing a job well done.