“Why, Soitenly!”

NOTE: I think I was greatly misunderstood yesterday. I’m not threatening to stop blogging … I just get weary of it from time to time. My point yesterday was to simply share a new blog I’d found (Janice Garrison’s) and a couple of sites that I find very interesting (the Rabbi and Al Maxey). Nothing more. But thank you for your encouragement! I may repeat yesterday’s blog a few months down the road just to get all the encouragement!! 

Terry Rush wrote a nice piece regarding the death of Michael Jackson. You can read it here. . .

Dear Muz:

Do you remember when cellular phones first came out? As cool as it was to be able to call from a car, the coverage was horrible and the cell phone owner had to contend with a rather bulky, heavy battery pack. I remember my first cell phone and how sleek and slender it was, but still almost 12″ in length to accommodate the battery.

Just in the four years since you were here today’s cell phones have become amazing personal computers … that can also place and receive phone calls! Sometimes we forget the main purpose of the things. We recently got iPhones from Apple and it’s far more powerful and useful than the first few computers I owned. For that matter, I have pretty much full access to the internet from my phone. We are also able to download various applications (called “apps” … clever, huh?), many of them free.

We are on a company plan along with Josh and Heather, so our phones are identical (and less expensive for all of us). Heather downloaded some game apps for Jackson … things that help him learn shapes, colors, numbers, letters, mostly in puzzle form. He knows his colors but the puzzles just help him develop his brain in many ways. She nor Josh ever showed him how to access the phone (it has an auto locking feature so you don’t accidentally make calls) but that little boy very quickly figured out how to unlock the phone, go the apps he enjoys, pull them up and play them! He even knows when the game is over, there is a way to sign on his name and score. Of course, he can’t spell his name, but he knows he’s supposed to go to that page!

There is one app that is simply a Zippo lighter. You flip the phone or rub your finger across the screen in the right direction to flip open the lighter, then rub your finger down the side of the lighter that has the spark wheel. He knows exactly how to get the flame up on that lighter and wave it around. (Interestingly, if you blow on the screen, the flame moves!) Do you remember how infatuated Josh was (and is) with matches and lighters and fire in general? I still remember buying a 2-pack of lighters once and Josh lighting them both in the car, then holding them up to see which one had the higher flame … burning two holes in the headliner of the car! Jackson can play with a lighter on the phone and not risk burning anything up.

I may have more knowledge at this point in my life (what little I can remember), but Jackson is by far smarter than I ever was or ever will be. I’ve always had to have Josh or Jessica do things on my cell phone that I could not figure out. Now I’ll be able to ask a two-year-old to help me!

I think Apple should make a television commercial of children under two years of age who have figured out how to navigate around an iPhone … they are just that intuitively simple.

Logan had a bit of a bug over the weekend but seems to be doing fine now. We went out to eat with the Walkers the night before they left to go back to Florida and Lillian was fascinated by the baseball game on the flat screen television above her, that little tongue of hers out the entire time. She’s just like you when it comes to that tongue being out of her mouth. We call her our Muz-baby.  Logan was busy trying to eat. He has a bit of an intolerance to formula and has a hard time keeping it down, but for the life of me I can’t figure out how a baby can be so chubby and “bulemic” at the same time!

All three of these babies have smiles that just melt your heart. Lilly’s cheeks are so chubby that when she isn’t smiling, her cheeks push her mouth into a frown … which just makes her all the more cuter! But when she smiles ….

Speaking of the Walkers … you would not believe what a fine young man Steven has turned out to be. You always loved him and treated him no different than you did any of your other grandchildren (we gave him Papa’s sword after you died … the one he enjoyed playing with when they visited you in Sheffield). You’d be so proud of him.

Earlier this week we stopped by Josh’s to help them take a sofa from their loft and replace it with a new one Heather found at a bargain price. By the time we got there, it was well after 7pm and we brought pizza for Josh and a salad for Heather. You know how much Josh loves his pizza, right? I’m so glad at least one of his sons, Jackson, has that same love. Though Jackson had already had his supper, he was not too hungry for his daddy’s pizza. But that’s not the best part of the story …

He wanted to go “outshide” and play but had already been bathed and was dressed in his pajamas, so that wasn’t going to happen, much to Jackson’s dismay. He thinks when his grandparents are around, the word, “No” should be banned from everyone’s vocabulary. He pitched a little fit that would make you proud only to then discover (as he was taking his fit “on the road”) his daddy was eating pizza! He immediately abandoned his fit as he walked by the table and, realizing there was pizza in the house, looked up at Josh with that angelic face that melts a heart, and said, “Pizza?”

What was really funny is that Josh was trying to hide the fact that he had pizza because he knew if Jackson discovered it, he’d have to give up some of it! So Josh got one less piece of pizza than he anticipated eating and Jackson thoroughly enjoyed a bedtime snack.

Hard to believe it has already been four years (Tuesday) that we buried you. It was the hottest, most humid Friday I’ve ever experienced. We were trying to get you in the ground and get out of there when your cousin, E.C., wanted to sing a few hymns in your honor. We wanted to throw him in with you and find some air conditioning! Just another memory from an unforgettable day in our lives.

Janice just informed me that I need to get off of this and get busy on some death certificates. I’ll write again soon.

Much love …

Greg