With the still recent death of my grandmother, my youngest son Cael has really taken that loss to heart and talks about her often.  Long ago my sons had worked out that my Mom and my grandmother were both called “Nana”, but then of course we got confused sometimes which one was which.  So my Mom became just “Nana” and my grandmother became Bumpy Nana, because she has “bumps” (wrinkles) on her face.  I personally think that Mom was just ever so slightly smug about that.  🙂

Anyway, it seems that Cael has discovered another reason to miss Bumpy Nana: her baking.  Nikki was talking to him about what Bumpy Nana used to do and what she was like.  The subject of baking came up, and Nikki said that she had tasted Nana’s baking and she was really good at it.  Cael responded rather typically: “It’s not fair that I never got to taste Bumpy Nana’s sweets.”  It was very funny, but his point hits home.  Nana stopped really baking before Cael was born, if I remember correctly.  He missed out on some really good stuff.

There are more than a few cookies and things that are missed, especially around Christmas time.  I particularly miss those sharp cheddar cookies that really were a cracker in cookie form.  They were strange and day-glo orange and awesome.  Countless other cookies and squares and butter tarts would be munched again and again.  Also, I can’t tell you how many litres of frozen homemade applesauce I ate with a spoon right out of the mason jar, scraping my tongue into oblivion.  I left the “forgotten kisses” to the last though, I never could get around the tooth-squeak styrofoam aspect of them, it was like fingernails on a chalkboard.  In hindsight, I probably ate hundreds of cookies right off the counter.  Whit and I had unfair access to the supply chain over all the other grandkids, I don’t know if everyone knew we were skimming off the top or not, but we were.  I feel no shame though.  They would have done the same…  🙂

Anyway, there you go, a little bittersweet kid story for today.