A Day to Remember!

Almost everyone knows the game. Three shakes of the hand in unison, then players either point two fingers that look like a scissors, show an open hand to represent paper, or keep the fist closed to resemble a rock. Paper covers the rock, scissors cuts the paper, and the rock smashes scissors. That's how you determine who "wins."

Well, yesterday following an awesome graduation ceremony for my now-first-grader-Annabella, Grampa and Gramma (that's us) played the game for hours with Annabella and her little sister, Evelyn. They are verrrry affectionate by nature, so we never suffer from a shortage of hugs and kisses; but on the other hand, there's no such thing as too much cuddling. So we introduced a new rule.

"Whoever loses," we explained to them, "has to give the winners a hug or a kiss." They were excited to incorporate this new twist into the game, and for what seemed like hours the four of us all shook our hands, made our choices, hugged, kissed, giggled and guffawed. What a great day it was.

I don't think they ever figured out that no matter who won and who lost, we were still getting lots of lovin' because with every "toss" we all hugged and kissed like crazy! If they did figure it out they enjoyed it as much as we did, so voiced no objection. They're pretty smart little cookies, so I'm putting my money on the latter. Bottom line: it was win/win/win/win and a good time was had by all.

That was my second favorite part of the day. My first favorite part was earlier when Annabella, sitting in the front row for her graduation ceremony, looked all around in the audience with a blank face, then spotted the two of us standing on a little hill behind five rows of chairs, where Grampa was videotaping the momentous occasion. She lit up, grinned like a Cheshire, wiggled and half stood, frantically waved her arms about over her head, and mouthed the most beautiful word in the entire English language: "Gramma!"

That was when I lit up, grinned like a Cheshire, jumped up and down and waved my arms overhead right back at her, which made her throw her head back and laugh in delight. The girl sure knows how to make this old heart sing.