Ice Cream Bars

... I will take these last 2 pieces out of the drawer ...

We took ice cream bars to Grandfather on Sunday.

Chapmans.

There were 8 in a package, vanilla ice-cream enrobed in chocolate.

The is a Superstore just a couple of blocks away from Agecare Seton, so we parked and made our way to the freezer section – half an isle, four shelves high, popsicle and ice cream confections.

... your move first, dad ...

Richard walked up and down the isle, showing his children from where to where – begin here and look at all of the treats all up to this point, he told them as he walked up and down the isle, his arms stretching from side to side and top to bottom.

Michael had done some thinking about a banana flavoured stick that Grandmother Joan gives them, and he couldn’t think of anything much tastier than that.

But we moved far beyond the known and bought something new, figuring out all the way in the car, if there were 6 of us eating 8 ice cream bars, who would it be who had to eat the remaining two bars.

I thought eating the bars would be restful, but having the chocolate drop off of the sides as the young and the old bit into the bar, -- that is what kept me busy with wipes on little chins, and hands.

A lot of it got on Kelvin’s blanket, but this was done by his own hand.

He was murmuring, “So good.”

Those bars aren’t that easy to eat when the space between the hand in which you are holding the bar and your mouth seems like a long distance, as it does for Kelvin now.

Easter decorations are in grandfather’s room.

Over the years I have collected them, never really thinking that they needed to be childproof.

.. a drawer full of crokinole pieces ...

 I was thinking of beauty or price point when I originally purchased them.

One ceramic bunny is now three pieces instead of one.

And I have 3 crates of chickens who are in nests, laying eggs.

All of the eggs did not survive.

Nor the crates.

 They are flimsy, but we could press the slats back together into the staples that had come loose and get the hens into their nests before we left.

Betty spent a lot of her time at an acrylic 3 story bunny hutch, a useless object.

But she took mini-jelly beans and was hiding them in all of the small rooms.

I was afraid she would drop the crystal glass container that holds the candy, so I put some in a small sacrament-shaped pill container for her.

I have some eggs decorated in the colourful Ukrainian style, but done with paper, so Betty put them in grandfather’s arm which was just circled on his chest in a way that would contain them on his bed.

I can put one more on top!

It didn’t matter how many times they rolled off of the bed.

Aunt Rebecca face timed in and told us the story of the lives of the people who live with her.

It was after 1 pm and the big boys still weren’t out of bed yet, so at least Michael has something to look forward to when he is a teen.

She told us that Kiwi, in her old age, has learned how to hop up on the electric blanket and turn the heat on during the day.

 I don’t know if this makes her a smart dog or a dumb dog.

Rebecca was making bread – one thick with pumpkin seeds, poppy seeds, caraway seeds, sesame seeds and multiple kinds of flour.

I can just imagine what the first slice of that tasted like, all dripping with butter.

We left Grandfather with a tidy room (clean-up is never fun) and he was listening to the calming music channels on TV, a nice Rimsky Korsakov chamber piece.

This bunny didn't make it through the day.

The second part of our mission at Agecare Seton was to play crokinole, since we had missed that gameboard the week before.

 When we got downstairs, someone had booked the big room and there was a family party going on there, and spilling out into the main game spot.

Boys had put together a ping pong table and there were more men around the pool table than there had been the week before.

We joined them, sat down and played our games gleefully.

Richard told me that he has to watch the older kids, but he doesn’t have to watch 20 month old Betty.

She stays in reaching distance of one or the other of her siblings, or entertains herself by climbing on empty chairs or she is on the floor under tables.

But she is always nearby.

 ... that is funny about Kiwi, Aunt Rebecca ...

Grandfather told us to bring him back some Easter eggs next Sunday – the kind that have candy that simulates egg whites and a yolk inside of the chocolate.

I will bring lots for him.

Anything that he is not up to eating, the other five of us will consume.

Arta