Dear Great-Grandma,
I have been thinking about you this week! I got your letter last Monday, and I sat down right away to draw a picture of my hand for you. Mommy helped me hold the pencil. I am afraid it doesn’t look very much like my hand. Maybe if you use your imagination?
Anyway, so I drew that right away, but then I didn’t have any more time to write to you! It was a busy week. I was practicing all of the things I am learning every day: I have to keep on learning to balance, and something else I will tell you about in a little bit. I am learning about picking very tiny things up and putting them in my mouth. I am also learning about the ceiling fan in our kitchen. Daddy lifts me right up to it and I touch it and pull on the cords! Of course he doesn’t lift me up when it is running. That would be scary!
I am also trying to figure out what a certain something is that people do, and how to do it. It involves hands, and they sort of flap around in the air–well, maybe not flap, just wave–and their fingers open and close sometimes, and it seems to be maybe when people are coming and going? I am not sure. So I can move my hands in the air like that, and I can open and close my fingers, but I can’t always do it at once, and I am not sure when to do it, or what it means. Do you know?
Last Sunday we had lunch at church and then Mommy and Daddy’s Sunday School class made applesauce together. Mommy says they made over 100 quarts. Is that a lot, do you think? I hung out in the fellowship hall with all the other kids my age. It was kind of fun because it was a big room with lots of space to crawl around, and there were some new toys to play with. And I have been eating the applesauce, and it is very delicious!
On Wednesday morning we had an adventure, Mommy and I. Joseph did not come in the morning. Instead, Mommy and I went down the street to the church and saw lots of little old ladies and these big cloth tents. I crawled around under the tents and pulled up on the ladies’ knees. They were all sitting with their knees under the tents and they were doing something on top of them. Mommy let me sit on her lap for a while and she had something sharp and shiny in her hand that she wouldn’t let me touch, and something long and bright-colored attached to it. She poked the shiny thing through the top of the tent and then brought it back up again and then did something to the long stuff. I didn’t know what was going on, but I wanted to play with the tent stuff, and she wouldn’t let me. Eventually I got bored so we went home and I took a nap. But it was fun to see all those ladies and smile at them all. Some of them reminded me of you.
Then on Friday, guess who came to visit! Grandma did! It was so good to see her. She played a lot with me while Mommy was doing something else in the kitchen. In the late afternoon we all got in the car and drove to a big open place with lots of people and buildings. We walked around and around (well, I was in the stroller) and we saw all the people and lots of things I didn’t understand. There were horses, there, though! They were pulling something behind them. Man, they were really big! I think horses are something else. Wow.
So Mommy said the place we were at was called the Relief Sale. The different buildings were places to do different things. Mommy dropped off her things at the Bakery building. She says she made bread. (I haven’t eaten any bread yet. Is it good?) There was also a place with lots of pretty things to look at–shiny things, wooden things, cloth things, and TOYS! We spent some time in the toy section, and I saw Mommy give the ladies some money, but she didn’t give anything to me. So I don’t know what happened there.
We met Daddy in a different building and had some supper. Mommy and Daddy and Grandma had food on trays, but I ate what Mommy brought along for me. That was okay with me, because what they were eating looked weird.
Then Daddy took me home, because I was very tired, but Mommy told me about what happened later at the sale. She said I should tell you a few things about it. So I will try, although I didn’t understand everything she said.
She said that lots of people got together in a big hall and they all jumped up and down trying to buy things. Some man talked really fast for a while and all the people jumped up and down and said they would give him money for the things he had. Wait, Mommy says it wasn’t exactly like that. Well, you probably know better than I do how it was. Anyway, some of the things that were being sold were very, very pretty. Mommy says they sold “quilts” and “comforters” and all kinds of other things, too. Mommy tells me that some of the quilts were sold for more than $3000. Is that a lot of money?
She also wants me to tell you about one special quilt they sold. It cost the nice person who bought it $6100. It wasn’t very big, but it was very special because it had feed sacks in it. Is that what they feed animals with? Why would that make a quilt special, great-grandma? I don’t understand. Wouldn’t it just make the animals want to come and eat it?
Well, anyway, that was the relief sale. I liked what I saw of it, but I think I will enjoy it more next year when I can run around on my own without Mommy or Daddy or Grandma. Then I will be able to see the horses up close.
So remember how I said at the beginning that I was going to tell you about something else I am learning? Well, I should first say that I am still not walking yet. But I have decided that I am going to focus on learning how. So I am practicing balancing a lot more, and I can do it for half a minute sometimes. (I don’t know how long that is. I asked Mommy.) And I am practicing walking while holding on to somebody’s hands. It is a lot of fun! Mommy holds my hands, or sometimes Daddy, and we go across the room, and down the hall, and wherever we want to go! I am really enjoying this.
I am sending you a picture that Daddy took of me today. It shows how I am learning to help out around the house. So in the picture I am going to try and load the dishwasher for Mommy. She didn’t actually let me that time, but maybe soon she will.
I love you, Great-Grandma! Is it getting cooler there yet? Here it is still hot. Mommy says October should be a cooler month, but I am still wearing onsies, not my warm fuzzy outfits, because it is just too warm for them. Anyway, I hope you are keeping cool and enjoying seeing the trees turn colors. They are starting to do that around here and it’s very pretty. I wonder why they do that.
Hugs and kisses, and lots of love,
Isaac