After a wonderful Saturday baking Christmas cookies with my three grandchildren while the rain and wind pounded the windows and melted all our snow, my 3, nearly 4 year old, grandson, Dylan decided he wants to stay. So after spending another night, I am thinking he might want to go home and he says he wants to stay another night. I say that they will miss him. And he agrees. He nods seriously and says, "They sure will miss me. They will miss me every minute." But he is staying.
Yesterday we started the day with Cranberry Pecan Orange cookies with an Orange Glaze. Same dough, add orange extract. I threw the dried cranberries and pecans in the food processor and pulsed it a few times until they were coarsely chopped, then added them to the dough. We shaped the whole thing into a square log, refrigerated it for an hour or so and then sliced it up, baked and glazed it with orange juice and orange zest glaze, and here they are!!
This morning he awoke saying today he wants to bake snickerdoodles. I say okay, so that is our goal today and then Mom is coming to collect him at lunch time. He is not pleased with this turn of events. I believe he sees a world of cookies stretching out into the future endlessly, If it were not for school on Tuesday morning, he would be more resistant to going home.
January 13, 2011 will make a full year in Maine. Prior to this last year, we lived in Tennessee for seven years. We went to Nashville for the music and stayed there for the music and the friends. But we could not convince any of our children to move there and that ended up being the deciding factor on whether we stayed. After hours of concentrated talking and weighing of options, we decided that it would be good for our lives to be involved more closely with our grandchildren.
But how to figure out where we wanted to go was the question. Not an easy decision when we have grandchildren in six states. But the family here in Maine was actually the one who have consistently wanted us close by. We all really like each other and get along easily. They have lobbied us to be closer since day one, and that was a factor. It is nice to be wanted.
Also, they are very supportive of our relationship with the children. Another factor. We lived in New England most of our adult lives and it is a part of the country that we both love. Our little town is on the water and that is a plus. Real estate is affordable here (although taxes are pretty high). This town is a real town...it has a main street, several good and one great restaurant, sidewalks, a golf course, tennis courts, a fabulous library and tons of activities, activitists, and a great farmer's market. All good qualities. We even have "senior college" where we can take classes in every conceivable subject from Bob Dylan, to Beowulf, to the botany of the Maine shoreline.
We still miss the warm springtime in Tennessee that goes on and on seemingly forever, in contrast to the brief and windy spring here. We miss the availability of great live songwriter performances which we adore. And we especially miss the great friends we found while living there.
It was a hard decision but we also were considering that we are heading into our elder years and it would be good to be near family now. We both think it is awfully hard on people who because of failing health have to move near their children and leave their friends and their home behind. We decided that if we did it now, we would form friends here and we will not have to move far away when we are less likely to be able to makes new friends. And ultimately we thought we were missing out on the grandkids lives.
So here it is, what we came for: Papa John with the boy, Dylan, at his feet. A warm fire, a kitchen that smells like grandma's cookies and a little basket of toys make for what one hopes will someday be comforting memories for a man who was once this little boy at his grandparents' house.
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