Blessed Beyond Measure: Toddler Tales Week 9: Summer is Drawing to a Close

This week (August 25-August 31) was a pretty busy week. Well, it really wasn't THAT busy, but the days seemed short and there was little extra time to enjoy once work, chores, meals, etc was complete. It probably had something (or A LOT) to do with the fact that my allergies have been absolutely awful this year. Spring was bad, and I thought: "soon it will be summer and they'll be gone". Well, that was true. They did go away...for about a week. Then the end of summer allergies hit like a freight train! I spent most of July and August completely stuffed up with a Kleenex in hand. Then came the itchy/watery eyes. At first it was tolerable, but this week it really hit hard and all I could think about was closing my eyes or scratching them out. Thus, I went to bad before 9pm every night this week! By the end of the week I couldn't take it anymore. My eyes were driving me mad and I had a (painful) swollen lymph node behind my ear. I went to the doctor who confirmed that my allergies were bad, that I had a possible infection in my eye because of them, and drugged me up. All that to say that I was pretty out of it this week and mostly just in survival mode. We did find time for a little bit of fun/memories though on Sunday, so I will share that:

When I was a kid, both of my parents worked so I spent a lot of time at my cousin Maryann's house, at my neighbor Chrissy's house and at my grandmother's home. While at my Grandma's home, there are four foods that I really remember eating. The first was American cheese. For some reason she always had a huge block of American cheese that we would cut slices off of (instead of buying pre-cut slices). I'm not sure why, but I always thought that was cool (and delicious). The second was peppermint stick ice cream. She never really had a lot of sweets in her house, but she almost always had peppermint stick ice cream in the freezer in the basement...maybe it was the same one sitting around for years? I can't say I'm a huge fan of that flavor, but it is after all ice cream and now any time I see it, I think of her. The third food is apple pie. My grandma made awesome pie and homemade pie crust. Whenever she made it, she had a specific tree design that she would always carve into the crust before baking. I wish there was a picture of it somewhere. Whenever I make apple pie now I try to replicate the tree, but am never as impressed with the results as I was of hers at a kid.

Me as a baby with my Grandma & Grandpa Piche

Finally, and the reason I am sharing all this, is graham crackers and milk. My grandma ALWAYS had graham crackers around and when I would go visit her that was often our special snack (many times before or after a game of UNO). We would sit at the table in her dining room with the crackers and two short, fat glasses of milk. Then, like cookies, we would dunk and eat away. It was one of my favorite snacks as a kid and now that I have my own child I decided I needed to keep the tradition alive. Thus for snack time on Sunday, Asher and I sat at the dining room table with two cups of milk and our crackers, and I taught him how to dunk. At first he just stuck his hand in the glass, but after watching me a second time, he had it figured out and did pretty well. We enjoyed our treat, and I will say that although some things loose some of their goodness after years of thinking how tasty it was and then realizing that is no longer the case, this treat was as delicious as always! :)

After our snack time, Eric and I decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and our proximity to Lake Michigan. We headed down to Carol Beach and let Asher play for a little bit before it was time to head home for dinner. He loved the sand and was quite interested in the lake, but not much of a fan of the lake's temperature (it was cold...VERY COLD!).