A Smile!

Oh the incredible worth of a smile! I have been thinking of this a lot lately.....seeing Aidan's first smiles, and then rejoicing at each additional one! Capturing them on the camera was a challenge at first, but now they come much easier(for more awesome pictures see Megan's blog)

When I was a teenager I had a poem on my wall that went like this:
A smile costs nothing, but gives much.
It enriches those who receive, without making poorer those who give.
It takes but a moment, but the memory of it sometimes lasts forever.
None is so rich or mighty that he can get along without, and none is so poor but that he can be made rich by it. ..........
Yet it cannot be bought, begged, borrowed, or stolen, for it is something that is of no value to anyone until it is given away.
Some people are too tired to give you a smile.
Give them one of yours, as none needs a smile so much as he who has no more to give.

Years later, Heather found it in a box of my things, and promptly put it up on the wall in her room where it still reminds all who pass thru that a smile is something to be given away! So why these thoughts on a smile?

Well we celebrate every single one of Aidan's smiles, and then a good friend was sharing about her father in his nineties, who is a recent widower yet decided to smile at every person he met in his care facility and see how many people smiled back! He announced at the end of one day, there was only that didn't smile back!

That got me thinking about how easy it is to get caught up in the difficult things that we face in our lives, the circumstances that so easily get us down. But this man has made a choice to share that which has no value to anyone until it is given away, and in doing so, brings a smile to the face of countless people every day, just because he smiled!

Oh the wonder of a baby's smile...it will brighten up the darkest day! Here he just arrived at our house and gave me a smile when I went to take him out of the carseat. 

Aidan and I had fun today and I managed to catch him laughing on this picture!! He sure thought I was funny.....what a beautiful smile! 

The things they have for babies these days!! This is his vibrating chair and he loves it! Works on the same principle of having him on your knee and jiggling it all the time! 

The animals keep watch....yup, Milo is here and the two of them decided they had to keep an eye on the baby in the playpen! The cat couldn't figure out what it was that I put in there and later on had to go and peek up close thru the mesh.... 

I guess we are definitely into being Grandparents. On Saturday we went out and bought a playpen(or play yard as the politically correct people call it) so that Aidan would have a place to sleep at our house once he starts to roll over and the couch won't do anymore.....so today when he was here I actually tried it out. He prefers to sleep on a warm body but it did work for a little while! 

A Tribute to Grandparents!

Last night Dave and I babysat our grandson for the first time while his parents went on a date night! It made me realize again what our parents missed, this routine involvement in their grandchildren's lives. And yet, at the same time, the impact that they have had.

I thought of Dave's father, who when he died left an amazing legacy.Every single grandchild had stories of some special memory of their beloved Grandpa, whether it was a visit while they were at Bible School, or a phone call asking about how the basketball games or piano lessons were going. He was a student of each child, knew what their interests were, and loved to tease them with that ever-present twinkle in his eye! We all miss him still.

Which brings me to the picture below. Two weeks ago I attended a Victorian Tea Outreach event, and since we were instructed to wear a hat, I decided to take out the Hat Boxes which contained my legacy from my maternal grandmother. Oma loved to wear hats, and would never have considered herself fully dressed without one! I had the incredible privilege of curling her hair for her every Saturday through my teen years, so I got to spend extra time with both her and my Opa. How I loved those times...time to talk, to learn how to speak a few words of Romanian, time to eat warm Apple Strudel, and sometimes time to model Oma's hats for both of them and make them laugh!

And so, when she died, I was given a selection of her hats, since I was the only one that would probably ever even wear one! So on this special Saturday, I got all dressed up, and topped it off with her beautiful black Fedora! Here's to you Oma!

All of my grandparents were amazing strong individuals who lost everything they had not once, but twice. First during WWII, and then again when they decided to immigrate to Canada. But before that, my grandmothers were the ones that had to keep the family together when my uncles and grandfathers were drafted at towards the end of the war. It was they who packed the wagons, and fled during the cold winter as the army moved westward. And it was they, at the end of the war, who waited for their men to come home. Some day I would love to write a book about these amazing women!

Which brings me to this next picture! Two more amazing women, my good friends, Jude and Deb, both grandmothers who invest hours into their grandchildren and have been great role models for me! Here's to you my friends! And to all the grandparents out there, hats off to you!