Cori Connors: 2024/16 FIRST FRIDAY

Dave held the door open for all of us. The Littles streamed out one after the other, the boys ending up huddled on the sidewalk discussing what sounded like some sort of video game. The girls scurried one after the other, Beth shouting “Let’s pretend to be animals!” followed by Tessa screaming into the south wind “I call reindeer.” She leapt like a caribou out to the van. Dave and I looked at each other and shook our heads. It’s nice to have someone with whom you can talk without words.

Yesterday was First Friday. Yes, it was the first Friday of the month, but First Friday with two capital F’s means something more!

A year or two ago we gave our daughter Annie a Christmas gift that would offer her and Jordon a little respite now and then. We promised a year’s worth of watching their kids overnight one night a month. It quickly morphed into all the little cousins joining in. We settled on the first Friday of each month. The gift has a recurring role under the Christmas tree now, for all our kids who live in Utah. We will First Friday until no one wants to First Friday anymore, or until we collapse, whichever comes first.

Our grandkids are roughly divided in age between the Bigs and the Littles, with fourteen-year-old Ruby sitting somewhere in between but leaning by personality toward the Bigs. There are six Littles, and five Bigs.

Bigs: Timo, Sophie, Parker, Anna and Ruby.

Littles: Calvin, Joe, Beth, Walter, Gracie and Tess. Their second cousins Quincey and Jonah are always invited to join us. They’re also part of the team.

First Friday is generally held the first Friday of every month, obviously, though sometimes it has to shift. Last month it was Second Saturday. The execution of it evolved from “sit at Gummy and Gumpas and watch a show” to a planned and executed group activity that inevitably leaves Gummy and Gumpa exhausted and a little lighter in the pocketbook.

It almost always begins with an early dinner at our house. Tessa decided yesterday we should have steak, though I was thinking pizza. So Gumpa grilled steaks and I made a salad and baked potatoes. After dinner we loaded into the van and headed to Brighton High School where one of the Bigs (Anna) was performing with the Mountain Ridge High School Improv Team as part of the High School Improv Festival. The Littles are getting big enough to appreciate the spontaneity and the humor. It was quite delightful to see them laugh at intelligent humor. Many of the Mountain Ridge cast are also Madrigals and had sung with me at my Christmas concerts, so it was extra fun for me that way. Anna did great! The whole cast was clever and hilarious and had stellar comedic timing. The Littles really enjoyed it.

Anna plays out an improv scene with Lucas.

The Littles loved it.

5 Littles and 1 Big

We followed it with ice cream then the long drive home. The girls skipped back to our bathroom and the large dresser filled with grandkids clothes, leotards and pajamas. Soon their play clothes were in three distinct wads on the bathroom floor and they were decked out in the coordinating pajamas they had dug from one of the dresser drawers. While I got the girls ready for bed Gumpa drove Calvin home because he had a Dungeons and Dragons meeting early in the morning. Walter, after a lengthy discussion of whether or not he would sleep over, finally decided to go home, sleep in his own bed, then come back in the morning. That usually works best because when he sleeps over I am inevitably awakened at 4 in the morning, opening my eyes to the face of Walter staring at me saying he can’t sleep. (It’s an inherited trait.)

We dragged out the cloth covered futons we’ve had for decades now. Cleared off the couch in our bedroom. Divided up the Minkys and soft blankies according to who wanted what. The girls tried out every single extra pillow to get the just-right one for the just-right head. They argued over who got the pillow wedges that always end up beside them on the floor anyway. We searched through the cup of toothbrushes for the ones with their names on them. Teeth brushed, hair combed, blankets laid out, they finally agreed on a bedtime book and settled around the bedroom couch for a story. Last night Tessa, the littlest of the Littles, wanted to read to all of us, except she made up the story to go with the pictures.

Joe and Timo joined us for stories and prayer, then they were off to bedrooms upstairs, leaving me to the drama of getting little girls to settle down for the night, spread out all over our bedroom. Mind you it was already 11:30 pm. I carried my old Martin guitar in from the family room and leaned back into a stack of pillows on my bed, plucking softly away while the girls whispered solutions to the problems of their little worlds. It took a good handful of songs before their paragraphs dissolved into sentences and then trickled into words. Then silence, except for my guitar. I played until I could hear the steadiness of their breathing. Then I tiptoed out to return my guitar to its stand and find Dave asleep on the family room couch. When we finally make our way to our own bed its always a mystery whether I’ll be able to collapse into a good long slumber or if my eratic legs or overactive brain will get the best of me and take me out to my recliner with a fudgesicle or popsicle and something to read, trying to focus the kaleidoscope of my brain.

Saturday morning after First Friday usually includes pancakes or French toast with lots of butter and powdered sugar and repeated episodes of Bluey or whatever the cartoon of the moment might be. This morning, however, we left the kids with Ariel (who lives with us. The kids call him a Cuncle – a cross between a cousin and an uncle.) Our friend Reed Gardner was burying his mother today, one week after her 100^th birthday, and we would take ourselves to the place to mourn with those who mourn. Rather than a hot breakfast the kids ate Lucky Charms and watched TV while we were gone to the funeral. When we got home I herded the girls into our bathroom for a bubble bath in the giant tub.

“Okay guys, we’re all mermaids!” one of them announced, and they each selected their names and the imaginary setting for their anticipated play. Usually, it includes some sort of mermaid school. There is little in this world that delights me more than those girls pretending together.

Meanwhile, the boys, with Walter back in the mix, got into fort making.

Saturday afternoon, after their parents have come to retrieve them, the activities for Dave and I usually include the folding of many blankets, the gathering of various popsicle sticks and potato chip bags, stacking of pillows, washing of dishes, collecting of toys and games, and (for me at least) a long nap.

As we sat at Wilma Gardner’s funeral today and listened to stories of her life, I imagined sometime in the future my Littles, who will perhaps have littles of their own by then, will gather at my grave and reminisce about their myriad of ridiculous and magical adventures on the first Friday of every month. Nothing could make me more delighted. I will nod my invisible nod and smile, satisfied that I had done what I could to seal those kids in their love for each other. Good memories tend to do that. Then I’ll find some divinely soft cloud of a pillow and take myself a long Heavenly nap.