Tea for Two on a Busy Day

“What children need most are the essentials that grandparents provide in abundance,.  They give unconditional love, kindness, patience, humor, comfort, lessons in life.  And , most importantly, cookies.”  Rudolph Guiliani

Today was one of those days when I felt overwhelmed with gratitude for the joys in my life. In case you didn’t know, grandchildren are just the most wonderful gifts in the world.  Six year-old Robert and seven year-old Laurel, had arrived yesterday for a weekend visit and the day has been as much fun as ever.

Even though it was Saturday, we did a few hours of homeschool, dedicated mostly to Latin, one of their favorite subjects.  Keeping in the Christmas spirit, they practiced Oh Come, All Ye Faithful in that ancient language.  That made the old schoolteacher in me very happy.  Yesterday, their homeschool group sang carols at a nearby retirement home.  I wish they had learned this song earlier.

After they had completed their school work and taken  a bike ride, Bob took Robert to a basketball game, leaving Laurel and me to enjoy girlie activities.  First thing this morning, she had asked if we could have tea today.  So that was added to our lengthy list of things to do.

It was a sunny, warm Florida day, too beautiful to stay indoors, so we did some outside chores before tea. Laurel loves to hang clothes on the line, so we did one load of laundry and moved on to gardening.

Deadheading is another of her favorite pastimes. She hunted down spent blossoms on the roses with the determination of an FBI agent.

Then it was time for tea.  A thoroughly femine girl through and through, Laurel loves all the amenities–embroidered linens, fine china, silver,  and, of course, cookies.

As we were making plans earlier in the day, she announced that she would like to spread Nutella on the cookies.  Robert, a vigilant label reader, grabbed the jar and alerted us to the fact that there are 21 grams of sugar in each serving!  Did we know?????   He can be very sensible when it comes to his sister’s fun.

This time, instead of tea cups, Laurel chose to use Battenburg lace cake plates and a rose patterned antique chocolate set that has been sitting idle in the china cupboard for almost 40 years.  I knew when I bought it that it would be perfect for a future occasion.  The future was today.

The cups are tiny, but how much Earl Grey tea  does a 7 year-old need?  She’d like to sample more teas and requested Bigelow Lemon Lift for next time.

We’ve been doing tea since the grandchildren were very little.  Time surely does fly.

Robert loved to join in when he was younger, but now comes mostly for the cookies.

After tea on the breakfast porch, we retired to the sewing room where she made this key chain/credit card case for a Christmas present. She used Terri Click’s in-the-hoop pattern and was tickled pink with the results.  This is the only sewing related component to this blog post, so I was glad she got that done!

Soon, the guys were home from the ball game so Laurel helped me make dinner.  Then, with Robert in the mix, things got pretty loud and raucous.  He is equally delightful, but it a very different way.

As I said before, grandchildren are one of life’s greatest gifts. And today was a another great day in my life.