Tin Plates

When my sister and I were kids, we spent weeks out of every summer in Georgia staying with my grandparents. My parents started sending us there one year while they were trying to salvage their marriage, and it became a tradition that lasted until my granparents eventually moved here. Some of my fondest childhood memories happened during those visits. Both of my dad's brothers lived in Georgia near my grandparents and they had kids of their own, so we got to spend lots of time playing with our cousins. There is something wonderfully simple about growing up with extended family around.

All the kids gathered at my grandparents' house and we would spend hours hanging out in their basement. They had one of those rotary dial phones down there and we would secretly crank call people and giggle for hours about our funny (read: immature) calls. One time we got caught and my cousins all ratted me out, but that's a whole other story for another time. Never leave your wingman behind, people. Jerks.

Whenever any of us kids ate at my grandma Ruby's house, she would give us a little tin plate to eat our food over so that we wouldn't spill crumbs all over her floors. You know, the round tin plates that pies come in. She had a bunch of them saved up. Almost every evening she made us ice cream cones and we would sit in the family room and watch tv, eating our cones over our drip-catching tin plates.

Today I took the boys over to my grandparents house to visit for a while. My grandma and I loaded the boys in my embarassingly large stroller and we took a walk to the Marketside grocery store. I bought some fruit and other miscellaneous things that I impulsively decided that I needed and then we headed back to her house.

It made me smile when she pulled out her little tin plate for Conner to eat his snacks on.


She rocked Logan in her rocking chair until he fell asleep and we watched The Young and the Restless. My papa came home from work around noon and immediately fell asleep in his chair. I will remember these times.


I am so thankful that my children are able to grow up near family. If only my sister would hurry up and have kids...legitimate or not, my kids need cousins! Just kidding sis, take as much time as you want...but hurry. No pressure.