I Love...My Biscuit!

First, I must agree with TLC that I do so enjoy our “theme” months. We’ve been at this blog for four years. FOUR! We often need some inspiration. Having themes can make our (feeble though they are) minds stretch to think of a topic for a theme. Naturally, “love” had to be my suggestion for February. No need for explanations, right?

Second, in case you’ve forgotten, I call Little Leighton (LL) “Sister Biscuit.” I don’t know why. Honestly, I don’t. My Sweet Hubby (MSH) called TLC “Sugar Bear” from the time she was born until she told him he had to shorten it to just “Bear.” She was about 8 years old. (He actually still calls her Bear fairly often...) I intended to call LL “Birdie Bear.” (Birdie because despite the fact that TLC despised birds for two-thirds of her life, she began loving them a year or two before LL's birth. Yes, she's odd. She really is.) I made a good effort to call LL Birdie Bear. It kept coming out like this: “Aaahhhhhh…Sweet Sugar-I-Mean-Birdie-Bear.” That was too long. Confused me. Knew it was confusing LL. So sometime, in the first month or so of her little life, I came up with Sister Biscuit. I do so love biscuits. Homemade. Store bought. With butter. With honey. Or cheese. Or gravy. Or scrambled eggs and bacon. Or all of those things! Seriously. I crave biscuits. The “Sister” part? No clue. My brain is a mystery.

Third, Sister Biscuit fascinates me. I love every single second I’m with her. At her casa. At our casa. Anywhere. Everywhere. She is TLC reincarnated. With a few special “quirks” of her very own. Quirks I treasure.

She’s coming to stay with MSH and me in a couple of days. For two nights. We simply cannot wait. I clean my house for a 2 ½-year-old! I make sure we give her the BEST and most healthiest, gluten-free food we possibly can. She never lets us down. She's pure entertainment from the moment she wakes until she's fast asleep. Non-stop JOY.

TLC sends LL's bedtime “necessities:” Her stuffed animals she must have—LuLu the Lamb; Kate the Kitty; Flopsy the Bunny. She has two “shugies,” also. These are her pacifiers. One is named Morty, as he’s a kitty that looks like our cat, Morty. And one is a little pink bear—named Shugie. Shugie Bear. Shugie Bear currently has no pacifier attached to her. It "fell off"—while LL was at school a couple of weeks ago. (Isn’t that strange, TLC? How did that really happen, huh?) LL has handled the trauma of it all quite bravely, but does insist on Shugie Bear sleeping with her and the rest of Her Friends.

She also has her blankie—that was actually TLC’s!!! LL discovered this 31-year-old baby blanket at my house over a year ago and, without having a clue as to how seriously special it was/is, took it over as her own. (When TLC was five years old, and still sleeping with this blanket, a housekeeper at a hotel in San Francisco scooped it up our second morning, with the sheets, while we were out sightseeing. We came back, exhausted, as TLC and I had literally walked miles that day, to discover it was gone. I frantically dialed Housekeeping and begged them to find it! They did! It was a miracle. A true miracle. We all knew it. (For LL to love/cherish/adore it—well, that goes past my heart and straight to my very soul of souls…sniff sniff…)


Below are two pictures of "the" blanket. The first is TLC and LL in our guest room (formerly TLC's bedroom while in high school and college) recently. I'm pretty sure TLC is trying to talk LL out of HER yellow baby blanket. The next picture is of Biscuit in her Dad's chair, at their casa, with the famous blanket turned over and with her one and a half pacifiers...Morty and Shugie Bear. (I'm thinkin' LL's lookin' at her Mom's old phone that has many, many pictures of herself! One of her Biscuit's favorite pastimes? Admiring her own super cuteness. Teeheehee. The only thing Biscuit loves to do more is watching videos of herself!)

Finally, LL needs her bedtime books. One (of the three she must have) is the most adorable little book that has Christian poems, and prayers, about “The Shepherd.” We’ve referenced it in the past as a Yeehaw or Yummy or Yumhaw—I’m almost positive we have. (We also love to give it as a gift to our special friends we know will appreciate the utter sweetness of this priceless little prayer book.) It literally makes this Grammy cry when she reads some of the poems and prayers. “The Shepherd Forgives” is the hardest one on This Old Gal. Sheesh.

The last time LL stayed with us, we went through her bedtime “routine.” Bath. Jammies. Brush teeth. Blowdry hair—if it’s a shampoo night. Read books. We got to the precious little “Shepherd” book when LL said to me:

“Grammy, read Note to Parents.”

ELC (with a confused look on her face): Read what, Biscuit?

LL: Note to Parents. It’s right here.

Of course you see it almost every time you open the book. It’s at the beginning. She'd not mentioned it to me before this moment. Yes. Yes, I read it. Every word. Trying as hard as I could not to laugh. I couldn’t wait, the next morning, to tell TLC about this event. She got tickled and explained: "LL asked her Daddy a few nights ago to read it. He tried to help her understand that it wasn’t really meant to be read. LL wouldn’t have it. She insisted he read it. So, he obeyed The Boss! Read every word. Now she wants to hear that page every night. "LL"—our "LF" (Little Fruitcake!).

I Love...My Biscuit. With every fiber of my being...I'm so deeply blessed, by God, to be her grandmother.
Gotta scoot...must go find one of my Betsey tissues...Wink. Wink.