Of course, the destination was well worth the frustrating journey. After a brief hello, RDC continued on to his own new godson, leaving me at Charenton for a blissful interlude.
Emlet learned how to blow bubbles over the weekend; also she sat with her legs crossed for the first time. I stacked firewood and helped to wire Pépé's cabin. ZBD and I collected eggs. A six-year-old cousin read a story to Emlet and her nine-year-old brother sailed us around the seven seas by way of the rowboat in the pasture. I read Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes and Go Dog, Go! and Frog and Toad Are Friends to the two-year-olds and listened with the seven-year-old to a chapter from the latest Redwall book. I herded hens, calling "chook chook chook," to which two did not respond when granddog Zelo was on the property; we debated whether "chook chook" might mean "I have the axe now git to the block." The two youngest babies stared at each other, Siblet at four months having just figured out how to sit up and the eleven-month-old cousin how to wave. There were ginger-chocolate cookies that I made in Denver (flat and extra crispy) and the other batch that I made there (domed and chewy); I figure the second batch came out better because ZBD helped me sift the flour (through a mill, because that is what we found) and Emlet helped to roll dough through sugar. I did a lot of dishes; we never had fewer than six at a meal and once twelve--throughout the weekend were Nisou, her parents, both siblings, one sibling-in-law, all five grandbabies, another family friend, HEBD and ZBD, and TJZD and RED. And me.
Someone's illness led us to discuss (not à table) how "stool" got its medical meaning (the "close-stool") and reading aloud selections from the OED led to much laughter: one of the sources mentioned "the stool of repentance" and another is a verse about "sitting between two stools." Merriam-Webster offers "the stool of election promises to balance the budget and reduce taxes, and the stool of the hideous cost of new weapons." Also Pépé didn't want us to forget about apostools and epistools either, and he and Mémé had just listened to an NPR bit about junk English and asked us to define what "capstone experience" might mean academically, and so I asked about the capstool experience. Later a stool pigeon came up and that was just too much.
We played in--well, near--the brook except for RED who slipped, dousing his feet in chill water. He took it like a champ, of course. We played poohsticks, some of us not quite grasping the up- to downstream element but having terrific fun throwing anyway. We played in the hottub, Emlet jumping to Nisou or me but thinking that ZBD was not big enough to catch her. She thought she was a fine size for pony riding, though, and I was even better because then both could ride me. This was I was game for until my hoove-knees gave out; they lasted longer on NBM's more thickly carpeted floors--visiting her and another part of SEM's family is the only time we left the property for three days.
Emlet and I constructed wheeled towers of Duplo blocks, which ran me over ("Not on me! On you!" in the sweetest French-accented, fluent English you ever have heard); ZBD and I constructed Minas Tirith in Lincoln Logs. We chased me around and around, and when I turned to chase Emlet instead, she corrected me: "No, you chase me!" We colored in coloring books, meticulously recapping a pen after each use, and generally coloring only in or near a small detail of the bigger picture. We admired Siblet in her elfin hat, seven-year-old ZBD's first sewing-machine project. I french-braided waist-length, very thick, but very fine, and glistening with spun gold, hair, so I told the stories of Rumpelstiltskin and Rapunzel. In addition to populating Minas Tirith, the animals I brought from the zoo (a tapir, sloth, mandrill, okapi, and jaguar; in plastic) served most excellently as chew-toys, especially the tapir. Nanabush sometimes had companionship in the stuffed wolf, who was either Jonathan the Husky (some Charenton folk are manic UConn basketball fans) or the Big Bad Wolf (under Emlet's care), and Emlet chastised me for hugging Nanabush hello because he is her "own personal animal."
Emlet's every expression is charming, but her clownface is something else, especially paired with my sister's and ZBD's. A couple of weeks ago I asked my mother if her Monday was free and, if it was, when my sister told her to get in the car, to get in and be driven like a good passenger. I had considered whether to tell my mother I was going home at all, and when I first told CLH only, she suggested my spending Sunday night in Old Lyme--which pressure to be from Charenton untimely ripped is why I debated. I put my hoof-knee down and kept to my suggestion of their coming to me and mine instead. And so we surprised our mother. Who was quite good and didn't say anything about my hair or my lack of grandchildren or curry in the chicken (although she was surprised by the baby épinards in the salad) or otherwise overly critical. However, she could not keep the vowels right in the children's names. CLH said she finally has got Kitty's sex straight, so that's something at least. Emlet's other godgrandmother also i'd the e in her third syllable but needed only one repetition to get it right; my own mother's mauling of Siblet's name into something you might name a sow and continuing to do so after more than six corrections made my teeth itch. When she did this, CLH and I would catch one another's eye and roll them--a difficult simultaneous manuever--and my mother, noticing this, would remark to Nisou each time that we thought it was "funny" when she mispronounced the name. Finally I told her it's not that we find the mispronounciation funny but that we need to sympathize with each other about her inability or refusal to learn Siblet's actual name.
But mostly my mother did fine. Although I am not always uncomfortable with strangers, I know which parent I favor when I tend that way. I wonder if she noticed how comfortable I am in the one house, inviting my guests to sit or drink, making salad, reminding Emlet to go pee, compared to her house where I always feel on eggshells and fear to make myself a sandwich lest I ruin her menu planning.
RDC returned from his aunt & uncle and other uncle and an early Thanksgiving with our other family (SFR is the prettiest baby ever) and baptism and meeting DWJ's betrothed. We had one last dinner together; RDC sympathized with and shared my inability to leave; he came up to kiss Emlet goodnight ("Goodnight, Tonton Richard!") while I was reading my last revolting rhyme to her; and then we did leave.
I had the most wonderful time.