Grandson Turns Eleven

Here he is four years earlier.




Mama and Papa Coyote headed west to Newberg, OR to visit daughter's family and celebrate her and her eldest son's birthday. I think I had fun. I was walked on, walked, slobbered on, head butted, slugged, climbed upon, jumped upon, rolled on, rode on, fed good food, and loved. I can't tell you how many times I read "The Cat in the Hat." What did the fish say?

M had a Mayan temple birthday cake made gluten free from scratch. Tasted really good. Nobody remembered to buy candles so he easily blew out the seven that could be scrounged up. I think he easily would have handled eleven.

Papa Coyote loaded the eleven year old and his five year old brother (the G-Man) to go visit Kaufman's Fly Fishing Shop in Tigard and then to meet the rest of the family in Washington Square Shopping Mall. Now here is a leap in faith and courage. My guide was the eleven year old. He was perfect. Even navigated the backways home to avoid rush hour traffic with his expertise. Not bad for an eleven year old.

At Kaufmans's I learned that M wants to learn to fly fish and tie flies. Okay. We will do that this summer. He might have to come for a longer visit than he has in the past summers. I talked to the clerk for some time and learned that he would like to come do a program for our Indianhead Fly Fishing club. That is cool. He gets paid to do his programs. I told him we don't pay for programs and that I could set him up with an expert Owyhee River fisherman (not Papa Coyote, LOL) while he was visiting. He said we could talk.

Walked into a toy store at the Mall and a guy tried to sell me a model of a bass boat. Why would I want a model for COL!? We got to talking fishing and turns out he is an avid steelheader on the Alsea and the Silitz Rivers. He got his wife to turn over the notebook computer and I saw several HERO pictures. I learned techniques to fish for steelhead on the coastal rivers.

So it was not too bad of a day even if I had to go to the Mall. We started the journey with the requisite trip for fries, burgers, hot dogs, and chicken strips at Burgerville. Burgerville is a cool place with the best milkshakes. Our grandchildren love as in LOVE fries.

I am here to tell you that two and one half days with an eleven year old, a five year old, a two year old and a seven month old can be tiring. We had a really good time and felt kind of bad having to leave our poor daughter to manage that bundle of pentup and sometimes not so pentup bundle of energy. I could not help to think of those thoroughly stupid women who get medical assistance to have a baby at the age of sixty. You know they could not have had kids or their minds have gone blank and they don't remember. Parenting day after day, week after week year after year is a physically and emotionally draining job.

Oh, we also learned some new vocabulary. "Ungy, yumyum" means, "I am hungry." That is two-year old speak. I guess it is kind of cute, but not so much at two in the morning. He is very stubborn and one about has to feed him when he is ungy.

I had hoped to take the kids for a walk on some trails and look for mushrooms, but I was overridden and had to go to the Mall. People watching can be almost as entertaiing as a good mushroom hunt. As luck would have it I found mushroom in a parking strip of grass next to our car at the motel in Wilsonville. Of course, I am at a loss for what kind of mushroom I found. I will post those pictures on my mushroom blog.

You can click on pictures for more detail.
Papa Coyote loves you all