This past Saturday, I spent the day baking those sugar cookies. Needless to say, I was exhausted by the end of the day. But for my husband's help, I would have been more exhausted! Sunday afternoon five of the grandchildren came over to decorate cookies -- Cami (9), Niland (4), Wilson and Cooper (3), and Benny (2). The kitchen table was stacked with plain cookies in 5 places, so each child had their own stack on which to work. Excitement permeated the air as the kids looked at all those cookies! We mixed up the frosting, and the fun began! I know Cooper ate more sprinkles than he put on his cookies!
We were especially glad to see Benny as Friday night had given us a real scare. Bob and I had gone to a Christmas party for some kids, put on by an organization in our church, and afterward, we drove around looking at the Christmas light displays and one in particular that had thousands of lights synchronized to music which could be heard on a radio frequency. While there, we got a phone call from my son, Nathan, who was at the emergency room with Benny. He'd had an allergic reaction to something that he ate. His entire body had blown up like he'd been pumped full of air, and his breathing had become labored. Nate and Bernette called for an ambulance, which arrived within minutes, and Benny was taken to the emergency room and treated enroute. When Nate called me, Benny was receiving medication through an IV and had just fallen asleep.
Bernette had left a harried message on my cell phone about an hour earlier, but I hadn't heard it ring due to all the noise at the party, and I hadn't checked my phone for messages when we left. Once I listened to Bee's message after I spoke with Nate, I called her and prayed with her and for Benny. Niland, their 4-year-old son, had witnessed the paramedics taking his brother in the ambulance, and he was very upset, standing at the window and asking his mother when the ambulance was going to bring his brother back home. I could tell Niland was distraught when I spoke to him in an added effort to assure him that Benny would return, but in daddy's car, not the ambulance. And they did return home around 2 a.m. Benny's swelling was down, and when they woke Niland up to tell him Benny was home, Niland hugged and hugged his little brother. Benny is currently taking steroids and is undergoing tests to determine what caused the severe allergic reaction. It was indeed a frightful incident, especially for Nate and Bee -- and 2-year-old Benny!
But back to the cookies -- Benny's attention span was rather short Sunday afternoon, so about 45 minutes after they arrived, Nate and Bee took Benny and the baby, Julian, with them, leaving us with the 4 other children. After most of the cookies were decorated, the kids played outside, running through the dormant flower gardens and playing on the swing set and slide. Later, we refilled our bird feeders, and when I mentioned to Bob that I'd have to clean out the seeds from between the slats of wood on the deck, Niland said, "Yeah, you'll have to do that later, Nana, 'cause you have children to watch!" He was so right! While warming up inside and snacking, they watched 2 short videos.
Nate and Bee returned around 4:15 to get Niland, and then I took the rest of the grandkids on a walk through the neighborhood, looking for birds' nests in the bare trees and watching the ducks that were paddling in the small pond down the slope along the road. When we returned to our house, the boys played while I finished decorating their cookies and packed them in boxes for transport home.
After everyone was gone, Bob and I finished decorating the remaining sugar cookies -- they taste better with frosting! Which is sort of like life -- it tastes better with 'frosting.' Family and friends are the 'frosting' that sweetens our life. And if they are the frosting, God is the 'cookie', the foundation from which flows all the sweetness of family and friends.
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