Auntie

Helen Louise Gibson

December 30, 1920 - December 22, 2009

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There are a few of you who don't know that I lost my great aunt last week. Some of you have heard me mention her. My mother, brothers and I were her only family these last ten years. She was like a grandmother to me. While growing up, and when possible, we spent lots of time with her and my grandparents. She never married nor had children. She treated us like her grandchildren. Auntie was a light in my world. She wanted us to experience fun and happy things. She dressed us and treated us to enjoyable meals and special events. She taught me to care for others and how to be kind and patient. Through her I made many special friends. She lived a righteous life and was passionate enough to share it with us and anyone who came in contact with her.

Auntie helped to care for newborns in the nursery at Cabell Huntington Hospital. She enjoyed Vanessa. When Vanessa was a baby, Auntie found lots of enjoyment in holding and feeding her. And it was obvious that Auntie still had her special touch because Vanessa was quite comfortable with her. We last visited with Auntie in October. Auntie grinned from ear to ear watching Vanessa's endless energy, even though she was concerned that Vanessa wouldn't sit still to eat. :) And she talked about how pretty the dreamsicle swirls are in Vanessa's hair . . .

I have to be frank and point out that I don't have many photos from my childhood. The few I had were taken by my grandparents and Auntie. I thought I had in my possession all the photos there were of me . . . until Auntie passed last week. Through her several moves over the last five years, we had not discovered a blue photo album. I remember moving a bag of "business" papers that we were to keep a close eye on, but I don't remember the blue album. (Perhaps she hid it in her overnight suitcase.) In the album were lots of photos of me from my childhood. I couldn't help but think what an amazing Christmas gift.

As we sorted through her stuff, once again, I realized I'm a bit obsessive with photos -- the person who ends up responsible for my belongings one day, already has their work cut out for them. :) Auntie made quite an impression on me. She taught me many life lessons. I'll miss her silliness and sincere love.

It is only right for me to share some of her beloved photos via the blog -- she's the one who sparked my desire and passion for photos and family memories. Here are a few. We have tons.

Auntie -- youngest in front.

Center

Auntie, you are once again living in harmony with your mother, father and sister . . . rest in peace on your special day . . .

Luke 1:14

He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth,

Crazy days make for crazy hair . . .

Makes you wonder what in the world she was doing in bed last night to appear this way in the morning . . .

Hustle and Bustle

We're filled with the hustle and bustle of the season! Vanessa has been decorating, baking and making various crafts. Every so often we squeeze in email correspondence and favorite virtual reads. But most of the time right now we're just enjoying Christmas. The other day Vanessa walked up to the disjointed nativity and spoke in a flustered manner, "Oh nooooooo . . .! Where's Jesus? Where's Jesus?" I told her that I wasn't sure he had arrived yet and we should check back to see if he shows up. This morning Vanessa asked if we could go to Santa's house. I told her that he'll come to us if we're polite and listen well. :) Needless to say, Vanessa is beginning to understand the true meaning of and things related to Christmas.

Vanessa liked that she could flour her hands and then clap big clouds of flour.

These cookies would have been all sprinkles if Mommy hadn't suggested we hold back a little.

A stuffed reindeer, that Vanessa independently named Rudolph, replaced Tom Turkey rather quickly. We like to root for the underdog. We talk about how all the other reindeer were very unkind and acted very ugly to Rudolph. Vanessa will say, as she sticks out her bottom lip, "Awww . . . Rudolph is sad . . ." She especially likes that Rudolph ends up shining so very bright.

Let there be light!

After breakfast this morning Vanessa ran into her playroom and exclaimed, "Mommy, the sun shine bright! The sun shine bright! See?!" We proceeded to play a game in which we would run into the beams of sunshine so as to "catch" the light. It seems Vanessa also missed the sunlight these last couple days. We're thankful we have it today, though!

Wrecking My Room

Sometimes Vanessa helps to clean up. But she didn't help too much with this job -- she wasn't finished showing Mommy all the things she can do by herself. (Many times I've caught Vanessa just sitting on her dresser. Recently she put most of her socks behind the dresser -- I'm still fishing those out. And we probably need to take her lamp out of her room because she's figured out how to unscrew the lightbulb.)

Mommy was able to put the room back together in 5 or 10 minutes, and you can bet it took Vanessa less time to wreck it. :) I should point out too that if you look closely, you can see Vanessa chillin' in her bed. :)

Cuttin' Teeth

I just went to get Vanessa from her nap and she told me that her mouth hurt. I asked if her teeth were bothering her. As she put one finger in her mouth, she replied, "Yes. See Mommy? It hurts." Vanessa's been working on her two-year molars sporadically for the last few months, just like she did with her eye teeth. Today is a day for working on them. She's irritable, and it's good to stay home. It was neat to watch her verbalize what was bothering her, so much so, I wanted to capture it -- however, she won't let me. When I pulled the cameras out, she demanded I put them down -- "No Mommy, put camera down. Put camera down here." I turned off the video camera and set it down, since she was crying hysterically. But after a few seconds I had to capture at least one photo, showing her protesting again:

Vanessa has every right to feel yucky and complain -- she's working hard on those teeth! But now we're having a happy moment, eating chicken nuggets and sucking honey mustard dressing off lettuce leaves.

A Not-So-Hairy Situation

I guess technically Vanessa had her first haircut a few days before Thanksgiving. We trimmed her bangs. We expected major drama with the scissors, but there was none. She sat tall and waited patiently. I was kind of disappointed we didn't make it into a bigger affair.

The Holton Horde (minus a few)

We were blessed to get some of the Holton related cousins together. Some of you have heard me tell about Adam having two male cousins close to him (and his brother Andy) in age. So there were lots of pregnancies for the Holtons (Grandma Jan and her siblings) about 33-34 years ago. The same happened with Adam's generation.

From left to right: Celia is 33 months; Vanessa is 28 months; Ben is about 27 months (We often call him Little Ben since Vanessa has two cousins named Ben. The other is known as Big Ben :); Tucker is 9 months; Audrey is 28 months, 10 days older than Vanessa.

And below are the Holton cousins, with spouses behind, holding offspring. Left to right: Christopher and Lauren (reside in CA; soon to have another baby in tow); Andy and Jenni; Adam and me; Jason and Christen.

One of the Holton boy cousins was absent. He, Michael, is a few years older than Adam and has four children. They were missed during this visit but we look forward to next time.

Adam, Andy, and Jason all live in the same area, so they see each other fairly often. Chris and his family were able to make a special trip and hang for a couple days. As you can imagine, it's a whole lot of fun to get the kids together, whenever we can.

Vanessa and Ben got along well. They both seem to be strong-willed, so it was extra neat to watch them work through situations on their own. They needed a little help every so often. :) By the end of the visit they were taking turns and sharing, at least on some reasonable toddler level. They developed a fondness for each other -- it showed in their hugs.

Cousin Audrey and Grandma Jan can stick out their tongues too!

Tucker was a busy bee chasing everyone around.

And Celia enjoyed being cuddled.

Fall Behind

It's weird to think Thanksgiving has come and gone. (And from the pictures -- it seems I'm also confused as to where Halloween went.) This is the time of year I begin to feel I've fallen behind on just about everything, determined to catch up. I'll catch up, at least to the degree I have to, and I'll wonder what happened to the holiday season. I haven't been doing as much freelancing work over the last couple days -- my little break, and ample time for my eyes and head to rest from staring at the computer so much. The time off allowed me to notice all my unfinished projects. It also allowed me to make a list for all the things to clean up and out before winter sets in, and before getting all the Christmas decorations out. Yes, usually by this time I have our Christmas card lined up and many decorations out -- neither have happened. (I do have baking scheduled and many gifts figured out!) Many of our neighbors have had their lights up for a week or so now. Everyone seems to be extra jolly with the lights this year -- we're surrounded and sit in the dark. We've decided that we'll put up a few. We don't want to fall any further behind! Naw -- if we get to it, then great. I'll be happy just to get the Christmas tree up this week!

(As I'm posting, Vanessa is giving me dialogue to play in her tea party and for helping to feed baby, so I'm a little distracted but quite humored. She might make a good director one day.) The pictures above were taken by Grandma and Grandpa, in their mounds and mounds of leaves.

Gobble, Gobble, Gobble

Vanessa will be sad for Tom Turkey to be put away in a few days. She's considered him a friend, holding conversations with him, singing to him, and hugging and kissing him. She carried him around almost the entire first day after we put him together. I imagine we'll have to sneak him away till next year. (Seriously . . . otherwise he'll begin to stink and get messy.)

It's been enjoyable to hear Vanessa talk about turkeys and such. The way she curls her tongue and forms her lips to say turkey is really cute -- almost as pleasurable as watching her say "Wooowwww . . ." She made a rafter of turkeys a few days ago. She had the patience to paint with five different colors using five different fingers. She then got to paint however she wanted, and really enjoyed painting her hand over and over.

What word do I use?

Vanessa is not lacking in the attention department. Yet this last weekend she didn't get as much from me as she's used to getting. This morning she wanted to cuddle lots and lots. I eventually had to send some work-related emails, and it would take me just a few minutes to do so. After I explained to Vanessa that I would only be a minute or two, and after her protesting very clearly how she felt about it, she went into the kitchen to figure out a way to get my attention. Within seconds she climbed on top of the kitchen island, pulled out the rather full plastic insert from the Fruity Cheerios box, threw the box on the floor, and then just sat there in the middle of the island as if she was doing no wrong. I knew she wasn't hungry by the amount of food she had eaten to that point, and the fact she continued to waste Cheerios moments before just to get more milk in her bowl to drink. I didn't say a word to her, since she knew she wasn't supposed to be doing what she was doing. I just picked her up and put her back in the playroom while closing the gate. She was mad, we talked about it, and she had a hard time working through it. (She only had to wait 5 minutes before she had me all to herself again. :)

The word that came to mind when walking into the kitchen -- ornery. But she's too soft, sweet and loving to keep that thought long . .. and I was sympathetic to the fact she obviously missed her time with me . . . :)

Speaking of her soft, sweet and loving side . . . Vanessa loves her cousin Celia. While I worked on Saturday, Vanessa got to visit with her. Grandma said Vanessa "shared" her apple juice. She also shared some of Grandma's flowers.

Vanessa doesn't have much hair on the sides of head, but Grandma was able to give them similar ponytails. Cute.

Pretty?

I'm certain there have not been many occasions when a toddler looks at an image of Woody Hayes and says, "You're so pretty . . . " Vanessa said just that yesterday when playing with our Woody and Bo bobbleheads. I'm sure Vanessa meant what Woody stands for is so pretty. ;-) We're hoping for a really pretty win tomorrow . . .
And if the second picture is any indication of what Bo stands for, we might just break them tomorrow. :)

Satisfaction of Completion

Sometimes a few more minutes of extra work is worth the satisfaction of completing something. Vanessa is great to find ways to entertain herself when I need just a minute or two. For this particular moment, it was neat to hear when she discovered the second drawer -- "Look! Wooooowww . . ." Who said VHS's are now worthless?