some girl time

The second of the grandkid visits is done. Her mom picked her up last Tuesday and so we had a day or two of down time before the next one arrived yesterday evening.

Autumn is one of the twins. They are 13 now. As twins, they are best friends and sometimes best enemies but one thing they have never been is the type to dress alike. Neither has ever been interested in highlighting their twinness. In fact from the moment they could assert themselves they have always made their own choices starting with their favorite colors. Autumn has always been purple and Jade has always been pink. Autumn asked me this visit if that was something they chose or if we appointed those colors to them when they were babies because in all the pictures, Jade has on pink and Autumn has on purple.

“No, always your own choice,” I told her.

So, it was with some surprise that, as we were shopping to pick out the fabric for her dress, she had an idea. The pattern for the dress we were going to make is the same pattern that her sister picked out and one of the examples on the pattern envelope was pink with white dots. Autumn saw that very material and also some that was white with pink dots.

“Granny, can I call Jade?” she asked, “I want to see if she would want to do our dresses the same, her with the pink and white and me with the white and pink.”

It took us a while to get Jade on the phone as she wasn't at home the first time we called. When Autumn finally got her on the phone, she ran her idea by her sister, listened a moment, said 'OK' and handed me the phone.

“So, what did she say?” I asked.

“She said,” Autumn mimicked her sister, 'Uh, nooooo.'” using that sassy little lilt that teenagers do so well.

So Autumn picked out a solid purple (all the purple prints were 'old ladyish'). Her actual first choice was a print of multi-colored peace signs but there wasn't enough left on the bolt, so we used it for the sash.

We sewed.

And we made ice cream.

And we made a kite. No wind though so we couldn't fly it yet.

And we went to the movie (Transformers again).

And she cooled off in the small pool.

And we helped my sister clean her new house after the painters were done and move boxes around while Marc mowed her grass.

And she loaded up my iPad with games.

And we ate and we stayed up late together and we talked.