When he woke up from a nap, he would immediately walk over to Grandma, grab her hand and pull her to his toys. Most of the time, she would sit with him in the middle of the floor and just do whatever he wanted. They just played and played and played. It was a joy to watch.
One of the cool things for Mom was getting to "live" in Holland for a couple of weeks. She and Amanda just went around and did the things Amand and Jacob do everyday. I think Mom really liked it: especially going to the musical playgroup -- one of Jacob's favorites.
We also did a few typical Dutch things, like ice cream and a trip to Maduradam. It was really nice to have Mom around.
This was the third time Amanda had gone to Maduradam, but the first time for me. I must say that place is incredible. It is probably the coolest miniature park in the world, and in my opinion, the best stop for visitors to The Hague. Seriously, insanely, uniquely cool. I plan to pull together a movie with lots of different scenes from the park, but am currently sidelined by incompatibility of Ipod MP4's --- I am beginning to really hate IPOD.
I hadn't realized it until we started planning Mom's trip, but my Mom and I haven't been together on my birthday for years. I suppose it is one of those things that you don't think about very often. So, for this year, we did it right; cake, party, gifts. It was a really fun time.
The best part of the day though was the gift that Mom pulled together for me. To start, when I last visited my sister, I noticed she had q quilt hanging in her room. It was a quilt with a square for each state's name and picture of the state's bird. I asked her where she got it and she said Grandpa Brown. ??? Grandpa Brown died in 1978 and I had no idea what she was talking about.
However, as the story goes... When Grandpa was in the hospital and weakening from cancer, the only thing he could do was needlepoint work. So, Grandpa kept toiling away, one square at a time. When someone asked who he was quilting for, he said "My first Granddaughter". Now, up to that point Grandpa had three grandkids, Dan, me, and Matt.
Two days after Grandpa died, Mom learned she was pregnant with my sister Ericka. Needless to say, she got the quilt. When it comes to family stuff I am really sentimental. I love looking at old pictures and hearing the old stories. So, for me, Ericka's quilt was priceless.
So this is where my story begins.
A couple of years ago Mom was cleaning out some old boxes and ran across a box of old quilt squares. She investigated it a bit further and learned that these were the unfinished squares from my Grandpa. Apparently, Grandpa finished Ericka's quilt, but then kept going. When he died, my Grandma picked up the task and finished the needle point on all squares, but died before she could be sew the patches together.
From there, the best we can tell is that they were boxed up and stored away for 25 years. That is, until earlier this year, when Mom found them in a random box.
At that point Mom knew she had a great gift. She started to try to build the quilt on her own, but didn't have the time to pull it together prior to her visit to Europe. She went to a few specialty shops and asked how much it would cost and it was high. Plus, every shop she visited indicated that the whole thing would have to be ripped apart and started over. Mom was totally against destroying any of the work her parents did. She knew it wasn't "top-quality" work, but recognized the real value was that Grandma and Grandpa worked on the quilt.
Meanwhile, she kept talking to her patients about her plans and the troubles she was having with the specialty shops. She happened to tell one patient, a seamstress, who fell in love with the story. Mom told her she didn't think she was going to finish before the trip and her patient offered to finish the gift.
She finished the quilt in the same spirit Mom intended. She didn't rip a single stich, nor clean up the mistakes. It was put together exactly how Grandma and Grandpa left it. Superb!
When Mom gave me the gift she said a couple of things that really sunk in. She said, "Grandpa started it, Grandma continued it, and Mom finished it". This was one of the finest gifts I have ever recieved.
It was so nice to have Mom visit. She and Amanda get along great and had a fun time together. Jacob found a new friend and an everready playmate. And, I got to remember what it was like to have my Mom around full time. We all remembered that We Love Grandma...
