Today.....

Today......... was baby Priscilla's 5 month check-up.   Jackie went along to help with her on the ride home from the doctor.  The one thing Jackie was dreading was of course the shots.  Michelle finally talked her into going by telling her she could go out of the room when she got them.  Jackie said afterwards that she could still hear Sissy in the hall.  It is a sad sound when a sweet little baby is cooing one minute and screaming in terror the next. Not a sound that this Grandma wants to ever hear.   She weighed 16 lbs. 3.3 ozs. and is 24 inches long.  She has officially doubled in weight since she was born!

This is her sad little face getting ready to go to bed......

This picture sums up how she feels........

Today......... was my day to go and work in Jackie's classroom.  They are doing testing, so the teacher had me doing a lot of prep work for the kids to make paper mache globes.  They were not going to start on them until 1:45 and Jackie was going to be leaving school at 1:30 for the baby's doctors appointment.  Any one who knows Jackie knows that making a globe would be a dream project!  I could not bear the tension of her missing out on the experience.   Thinking to myself smugly, that I am a crafty sort of gal, I asked if I could just work on Jackie's at home.  The teacher had a jug of liquid starch, ripped up paper towels and blown up balloons on strings ready for them to work on .  After glancing at the items she had, I figured this would be simple.  Jackie  and I bounced out to the car with a balloon on a string and drove home.  Keep in mind, I have NEVER even remotely done anything that involved paper mache. 

 The nightmare started when there were no jugs of liquid starch to be found.  We compromised with a can of spray starch.  Next, I decided I might need some backup instructions and tips, so  I went on the Internet. I actually  found a "How to make paper mache" video on You Tube.  It was a man and he make it look ridiculously easy.  He was mixing up 2 cups of flour with 2 cups of water and just dipping the strips into the mixture and slapping it on to a 2 litre bottle.  I thought to myself that I could come up with an even better mixture. I mixed up a cup of of spray starch and a cup of water with two cups of flour.  With my strips in hand, I went out on the deck to hang the balloon from it's string and get started.  From this point on, things just kept getting worse.  I quickly discovered that my mixture was so thick it was very difficult to soak a strip of paper towel in it.  When I finally got a strip moistened, it really wouldn't stick onto the balloon.   Suddenly the wind starts blowing, and I have Jackie holding the string, so I can try get something to stick. 

 Blobs of thickened goop are all over my hands, on my clothes,  and all over the towels I had on the ground.  Finally. it started to stick, but the more I got on the more it started sliding  to the bottom of the balloon and clumping.  I have no idea how long we were out there. Towards the end I was literally patching areas with wet strips soaked in spray starch.  By this time, the balloon is soooo heavy I was terrified it would break off of it's little yarn string. I get the balloon down from it's hanging spot and carefully rush down the hall to my bathroom.  Hours pass with me trying to blow dry the globe. Eventually, I call it a night.

It is now three o'clock in the morning. I woke up with a start and I started dwelling on the BALLOON.  After lying in bed trying to get my mind to go blank, so I could  get some much needed sleep, I found myself in the bathroom, kneeling over the soaking wet balloon,which is lying in my bathtub.  A couple of the pieces were lifting, so I ended up going outside to get the spray starch off the deck.  I was chattering, as I had just heard some raccoons on the roof.  It will be a while before I can get back to sleep, so I have decided to try and finish this post.  I must be tireder than I think, as I am making so many mistakes on here...................

My wonder mixture!

The nifty spray starch amidst the giant mess.

One of the goop soaked towels on the ground.

Jackie  trying to decide if there is any hope......

Another view of Grandma's folly.

I had actually thought this would be a fun photo session of Grandma and Jackie working happily together.  It was such an incredibly sticky mess, I couldn't even touch the camera until the end.

Today........I learned, the hard way, that I am not as clever as I thought I was.