Grandma Knows Best

I have a near-perfect mother. It is therefore unsurprising that my boys have an unbelievably awesome grandma. A grandma who was prescient enough to arrive in London from Florida on the very day her grandson, Alex, was born. She arrived bearing gifts, including a quiet book for James and two baby blankets for Alex of her own making (one of which is in the above photo of Grandma and Alex).

In the ten short days of her visit, she was able to do no less than the following:

• wash, dry, fold, and put away approximately 17, 259 loads of laundry
• cook several yummy dinners
• hold baby Alex for hours (while pacifying him more quickly and effectively than I could)
• watch James while Micah and I were at the hospital
  
• take James to the movies
• take James to the dinosaur museum (a.k.a. the Museum of Natural History)
• win James' heart and capture his imagination by tirelessly playing make-believe with him
  
• teach me my first knitting lesson
• visit a few tourist sites, like the British Museum, the National Gallery, and the London Eye

I talk to my mom a lot on the phone, but it took a visit to remind me just how lucky I am to have her and how much I still have to learn about being a mother. A day or two after she flew home, James asked Micah wistfully, "Did Grandma Cindy come back?" We all wish she would.