Family

I had to dash into the grocery store really quick yesterday.

I suppose the first thing to catch my eye about the young woman walking in just ahead of me on this unseasonably warm Fall afternoon was the flowy floral printed dress she was wearing. But, what really held my gaze was the little boy holding her hand. I was trying to guesstimate his age.  Maybe 7ish?

As we walked in, she grabbed a cart, but I didn’t.  There wasn’t much on my Empty Nester grocery list- milk, eggs, Coke Zero and wine – an armload at best. So, I didn’t really require a cart. These days we eat out, order in or make do. 

He was talking her ear off about his little-man day. She was listening. I was too. I was listening the way everyone within a mile of us listened to my boys once upon a time – by default…

And then I headed back to the refrigerator aisle, wondering when the last time my little boys held my hand in the grocery store. Like, seriously, when was the VERY LAST TIME?

That lady’s boy was a little on the older side, teetering on the brink, if you will… She might be nearing one of the last times he would hold her hand while walking in to the grocery store. I wondered if she was aware of that?  I bet not. Should I go tell her? I bet she was clueless. I think a small part of me (the exhausted part?) back in the day naively thought my children would always hold my hand as I we walked into the grocery store.

Endless little hands on endless grocery store runs for the endless gallons and gallons and gallons of milk we endlessly pursued…

I once read this gut-wrenching piece about how it’s good we don’t know the last time we do the things we do. The last time we nurse a baby, the last time we rock one, the last time we tie their shoe or read them a bedtime story or help with their homework. If you’ve never read it…don’t. Unless you actually want your gut wrenched.  

but…

On the brighter side of things, we truly never stop being mommies. I woke up with a startle at 3 am this morning and ran across the house with my heart racing to see if my boy made it home safely. The last thing I remember before I fell asleep last night was a text from him saying he was just leaving Dallas (9 pm) and could I leave a door unlocked (of course). I quietly tiptoed down the hall and ever-so-gently turned the doorknob of the spare bedroom so it wouldn’t creak and cracked it open a few inches – just enough so I could see in, but not enough that the light from the hall would wake him. 

And there he was. 

My baby boy. 

Almost bigger than the bed itself. I tskd-tskd a little about the state in which he was sleeping. He was lying diagonally with the sheets and blanket all tangled up in his limbs. I resisted an abnormally strong maternal urge to crawl in on all fours and make adjustments to his sleeping arrangement. I can assure you, had I done that, it would not have ended well, so I exercised remarkable restraint, backing out quietly and slithering back into my own bed (quite neat and orderly). And, believe it or not, I was actually able to fall back asleep secure in the knowledge that he was safe and sound.

He gets married in a few weeks. To the lovely girl I started praying for before she was even born. I prayed God would send someone who would love him as fiercely as I do. I prayed God would send someone who would rest in his strength, believe in his strength but also really see his tenderness and protect it. I prayed for a strong partner that would walk beside him in a world that’s not so very easy and that they would both never have their very worst day on the same day, so they can hold each other up. I prayed for someone who would laugh with him and share music with him and love their children with him. If they can have all of this, they’ll be happy.

And so will I.

And just one more thing I honestly didn’t think of back then…I’m hoping she will keep his sheets and blankets sorted out. I really don’t think that’s asking too much.

The other day, in a foolish moment of recklessness, I asked two of my little granddaughters what they wanted Santa to bring them this year. Their responses gave me an immediate case of PTSD. One requested, “A rainbow scooter that lights up with blue wheels!” The other one asked for, “A Teal Guitar!” Let me be clear, lest you think, as I briefly did, that she meant, “a Steel Guitar” She indeed specifically meant the COLOR of the instrument. A TEAL guitar. I clarified this.

Fulfilling children’s far-fetched requests every year was always one of the most daunting tasks of motherhood. Especially challenging was procuring that particular year’s MOST COVETED TOY. The angst of trying to out-maneuver other mothers to get my hands on a Teddy Ruxpin, or a Tickle-Me Elmo was nothing short of brutal. Before I could blink, they outgrew those creatures and I was out beating-the-bushes for specific colors and sizes of North Face jackets and Ugg boots. And the electronics! May we never forget the Wii, the PlayStations and the Gameboys.  I stood in line for hours at GameStop just to get my hands on them and then served Macaroni and Cheese (the Blue Box) for a month to afford them.  

Zero regrets…

T’was all worth it…

Christmas morning was magical…

Nonetheless, this year I had the brilliant idea to go a different route. Rather than traipse all over the place purchasing gifts “From Santa,” I decided to make joyful memories with everyone I love instead.  I decided to use my precious and finite resources to create memorable and meaningful merriment in the form of  “experiences!

Friday night was the kick-off of my, “Experience Experiment.” We all dressed up and went to our local theatre to see, “A Christmas Carol.” Almost everyone loved it, except my 4 year old granddaughter who didn’t make it past Jacob Marley before loudly insisting on being rescued from the performance. She spent the remainder of the evening in the parking lot with her mother who texted for “ghost updates” in order to estimate how much longer they would be waiting…

“We are on The Ghost of Christmas Present, so just one more ghost to go!”

The next morning she informed us she, “never wanted to see that play again!” We assured her she needn’t ever, but we couldn’t resist mentioning that she missed the snow falling on the audience at the end, to which she responded, “It was fake snow!” (The ghosts were real, but the snow was fake.) She’s quite the Patron of the Arts.

Saturday afternoon we attended our first-ever and last-ever Christmas Cookie Baking Class.  I knew I was in trouble the minute I ushered my rambunctious crew through the door.  They were the ONLY children there. We were beyond conspicuous. I naively assumed a Christmas Cookie class would be for kids. I’m not bitter, yet I couldn’t help but wonder what kind’ve grown-ups require a pricey class on basic sugar cookie creation. That seems like Holiday 101 to me.

Now, I’m not saying my grandchildren were naughty, but they were children. Children at an ADULT EVENT. After they bickered over the fairest allotment of cookie-cutters, sprinkles and dough, they were mostly pleasant to work with. Insofar as far as children are ever pleasant to work with. (For more insight, see the Martha Stewart segment where she decorates sugar cookies with child actors…) Nonetheless, I couldn’t help but wistfully notice all the grown women around us, NOT arguing and whose brand new black suede Uggs were NOT covered with pounds of flour.

Oddly enough, our group finished before everyone else.  I suppose because all the adult students were actually devoted to painstakingly decorating their cookies with acute attention to detail, as opposed to spraying frosting and sprinkles on fresh baked cookies like Jackson Pollard on a sugar high.  As we sat at the “Recovery Table” waiting for the laggards, the children asked me how many cookies they could eat on-site.  When I said, “Two!” they responded,

“Our mommy said we could only have ONE EACH!”  

“Well, your mommy is not here. You can have two!”

I was a tad preoccupied and in no mood to negotiate.  I was busy scrolling through my phone. Would you believe that in the time it took Sur Le Table to box up our cookies, I found BOTH a Disco Scooter AND a Teal Guitar online? Just satisfying my curiousity.

I’m sure by now you take my point.

On the off-chance you’re getting all overly-inspired to emulate and execute my idea, I feel compelled to acknowledge the obvious – it’s tons easier to continue sloshing water for that old Patriarch-in-the-Red-Suit. Just buy the gifts! After all, the elves at Amazon have really changed the rules of engagement.

And next year, I think I’ll consider experiencing Sugar Cookie Class with my adult Lady-Friends. Clearly, I’m the one who could benefit from a little more Holiday 101.

There are lots of reasons to have children.  There must be, considering how we humans have kept this trend going for as long as anyone can remember.  We seem determined to complicate our lives, despite the fact that this endeavor is expensive and exhausting.  

I mean, sure, there’s all the obvious reasons…they’re cute and sweet and they supposedly love us unconditionally.  But I’ve come to the recent conclusion that we derive ultimate pleasure from the fact that they look and act like us…in miniature.   And it’s a lark.  

With the influx of fresh new members of late, this hobby of spotting each other’s traits in the kids has become a favored family pastime of ours. An untold amount of text threads, photos and videos are devoted to chronicling and discussing who looks like who, acts like who, sounds like who.  Who has whose hair, who has whose eyes, who has whose attitude, intellect or grit.  I’ve started to understand what people mean when they say, “Grandchildren are a gift!”   I’ve gotten almost every member of my family boomeranged back to me in one form or another.  

Including myself. 

I certainly brought home the receipts after my recent President’s Day outing with my two oldest grandchildren.   The kids had the day off of school, but their parents had to work, so who better to entertain the little tykes than their perpetually unemployed grandmother? 

I picked them up, took them to as fancy a restaurant as is prudent to take small children, and then had the brilliant idea that we should jaunt on over to Build-a-Bear at the local mall and create a bear for their baby brother, who was getting tubes put in his ears the next day.  I announced my plan at lunch.  

“Have y’all ever heard of this place called Build-A-Bear where instead of merely BUYING a stuffed animal, children can actually MAKE a stuffed animal?  Like stuff it and everything?”

In hindsight, my timing was atrocious. Our waiter had just set our meal on the table.  Luke, 6, sensitive to the never-subtle nuances of his 4 year old sister’s every mood swing, started cramming his chicken tenders in his mouth at record speed, while simultaneously flagging down our waiter for a couple of to-go boxes.  Meanwhile, Anna’s eyes were rolling back in her head, she started flailing about in the booth and it seemed as though she might have a mini coronary right there on the spot.  

I had barely paid our check before Luke had managed to strap not only himself, but his sister into their car seats.  As we drove to the mall, I trained my rearview mirror on their faces and firmly admonished – we were only making ONE BEAR!  For the baby.  Because HE WAS THE ONLY ONE HAVING SURGERY!

They both nodded in cherubic complicity.  This seemed to make perfect sense to them.  These two are obsessed with their baby brother and were delighted by the prospect of customizing a bear for him.  And I was pretty tickled with myself for coming up with this selfless project…having fun together AND building character all in one afternoon.

Everything was going according to plan…

…All up until we walked into the dazzling magnificence that is the Build-A-Bear Industrial Complex.  If you’ve never been there, it’s a stuffed animal lover’s utopian  fantasy.   And, wouldn’t you know it, my Anna, is a stuffed animal lover.  We were surrounded by bins and bins of limp, furry creatures just waiting to be brought to life by a small child.  Think Taxidermy-For-Tots, only slightly more hygienic.   

Anna aggressively picked up a colorful drooping pelt and shouted loudly, capturing the attention of all the other patrons, “When I have MY surgery, I’m getting THIS one!”  

‘Oh no,’ I thought to myself, ‘She’s gonna march straight home to her parents and demand a hysterectomy or something!’

But I managed to distract her into selecting a bear for the baby.  I got everything back on track – a swell time was being had – all up until we got to the station where you record your little voice into a little message on a little chip that goes magically into the bear’s little paw.  

That’s when she lost it.  She flipped her *$&@#.   

Before I describe the anarchy that unfolded next, allow me a brief aside to describe the females in our family.  We are some of the most delightful gals you’d ever want to know.  We can breathe life into your parties, your galas, your weddings, your whatnot.  We’re the first on the dance floor and the last off.  We will dominate the dreary air space with a witty or intelligent take on any topic from breastfeeding to politics.  In short, we are more fun than a barrel of monkeys.  Unless we are triggered by some form of perceived injustice.  And, while that may take a lot, when we see ourselves spiral, we shoot off warning flares.  But if the warnings are missed…All the king’s horses and all the king’s men…if you know what I mean…

To be fair, Anna shot off a warning flair.  I just dismissed it.  

Cue the chaos:

“It’s not fair! I never get to have surgery!  Everyone in my family gets to have surgery ‘cept me!”

“Anna, sweetheart, that’s not true, NO ONE in your family has EVER had surgery before!”

One more quick mention about the girls in our family…when we decide to mount a case, we get our duckies all lined up in one big irrefutable row.  We certainly were at an inflection point.  And what a schmuck I was, kneeling down, thinking I’m going to match her energy by telling her who HAS and HASN’T had surgery in her very own family…

“Uh-huh,” she insisted, “Luke got to have HIS ears done!  Now Baby Caleb’s getting HIS ears done! And Mommy got all those babies taken out of her body and Bella…”

She trailed off when she got to their beloved dog, Bella, who actually did have a surgery about a year ago, but neither of us could recall what kind, but honestly, it didn’t matter at this point.  

“Aaaannnnddddd…”  said scanning my face intently…

I got nervous.  She had just accurately catalogued her older brother’s tube surgery that happened before she was even born, her mother’s pregnancies and miscarriages AND a pet surgery! This child was not playing around.  She had more family medical history than an EOB from Blue Cross/Blue Shield.   Call me paranoid, but I knew I had mere seconds before she shared my elective procedures with the entire Build-a-Bear community.  Hippa be damned.  

I thrust that rainbow bear at her, the one she had been eyeing earlier…

“How about this one?” I suggested.  “Do you want this one? Look how cute he is!  I think he loves you!”

An hour or so later, we walked out of that place with a greater population of bears than Yellowstone.  I was broke and exhausted after being bested by a smaller version of myself.   

Word to the wise:  Build-a-Bear is not the place to go to build character.  It’s a place to go to build bears. Just bears.  Many bears.  

Later that afternoon, when I dropped them off, I lingered for a bit chatting with their parents.  When I went to tell the kids goodbye, I noticed neither brother had possession of their bear.  All the bears were in Anna’s room in Anna’s custody.  They were lined up in her bed, where she was feeding them and fiercely scolding them – admonishing them to, “straighten up!” and “behave!”  Or else.   

I couldn’t wait to hop on our family group text and brag about how Anna has inherited my penchant for strictness with her charges.  She doesn’t put up with anything.

That’s what she got from me.

It’s getting harder and harder to ignore the fact that I’m being cheated on.  It’s scandalous.  And, yet, no one seems to care except the other ladies in my Book Group. 

Most of them are getting cheated on too.  We meet monthly to discuss various and sundry books, but we inevitably meander off-topic.  The last time we got together, we ended up lamenting this rampant infidelity that’s uprooting our otherwise happy lives.  

Almost every woman in the group could relate.  Admittedly there were a few who hadn’t experienced it YET, but they were warned by the rest of us…

 “Don’t be naive!”

“Just you wait!”

Adding insult to injury, we all agreed, is the fact that the little cheaters don’t even have the decency to try and hide their betrayal from us.  I mean Zero Discretion!

“Bye Grandma Laylay!” they chirp cheerfully as they hug and kiss me goodbye, “We’re off to Mumsie’s now!”

It’s really hard not to feel betrayed when they skulk off to the open arms of another woman while you stand around surveying your broken home that resembles a war zone in the aftermath of their departure. 

Mumsie is, “The Other Woman!” Or, as my 3 daughters pragmatically refer to her, “their children’s other grandmother.”  Of course, they’re not ALL named Mumsie.  There are 3 of them and they go by various other grandma monikers, but the principle is the same. 

 I am sharing my grandchildren with other women.  

Women who, I’ve been told, love and dote on them as much as I do.  That could be true, I suppose.  How would I know?  I’ve never been, “The Other Grandmother.”

This would all be fine and dandy if the competition weren’t so FIERCE.  We’ve all been mystified by the reality TV shows about  “Sister Wife” arrangements.  This is where a small group of women amicably share the same husband, children and chores.   It’s an intriguing plan, as marriage and family can be EXHAUSTING.  I don’t know many women who haven’t given at least passing consideration to the concept.  But we always quickly dismiss the idea when we remember how we could potentially be compared unfavorably to the other ladies in question. 

I’m not admitting I’m competitive, but I don’t love it when I come up short when compared to others…

Case in point:

My daughters and I were all sitting around the other evening enjoying a little wine-time together, when we happened to get on the subject of their mothers-in-law.  Three lovely ladies whom my daughters all adore and the feeling seems to be reciprocal.   

Eventually the conversation took a turn, when one of my daughters asked her sister about her MIL’s grand-parenting style .

“Well, she’s just a different kind’ve grandmother from Mom, which is wonderful, because my kids get to experience the best of both worlds!”

My ears pricked right up.  How is she different from me I wondered.  I didn’t have to wonder long…

“How is she different from Mom?” the other sister asked. 

“Well, she’s just the type of grandmother who gets down on the floor at their level and wrestles around playing with them.  She’s super high-energy!”

“What?” I protested, with what any casual observer would agree was quite a bit of energy.  “I’m ALWAYS on the floor playing with them!”

I can’t even remember which daughter pointed out that I was currently sitting on a white couch sipping my Cabernet from a long stemmed wine glass, while the grands had been instructed to play in the playroom.  I wanted to slither off the couch onto the floor that very moment, but I knew that would look all too obvious.   So, a few minutes later, I got up to pour myself some more wine; when I re-entered the room, I lowered myself gracefully down to the floor.

What???   I just wanted to be down there all approachable and Grandma-like in case one of the little darlings sauntered back into the room. 

She then went on to explain how the other grandmother makes Rice Krispy treats with the kids and how very taxing this is to do with children.   Girl, I get it.  I raised 5 kids, everything is taxing when it involves children.  And for sure, stirring melted marshmallows into cereal is no job for the weak and weary.  

I’ll gladly cede the entire Rice Krispy Treat World to my formidable competitors. But, also, unbeknownst to me, apparently I’ve relinquished the entire world of On-The-Floor-Fun-Grandma-Energy.  

So unfair.  

This is why it’s difficult to be a, “Sister Grandma” with another woman.  Sure, it’s nice to know there’s another woman out there helping to carry the full weight of your load.  These kids are a lot, so that part’s great.  All up until someone goes around inferring that you can not, nor will not melt marshmallows or roll around with reckless abandon on your living room floor.  

Oh well…

I knew from Day 1, as we were passing that little burrito bundle around in the hospital, this was inevitable.  These kids were born with a wandering eye.   They suck all the fun out of one Grandma and then move right on to the next one waiting around with arms wide open.  

But you can bet the next time those little Home Wreckers come tearing into my house shrieking at the top of their lungs, 

“Grandma Laylay, Grandma Laylay! We’re here!  We’re here! Where are you?”

I’m going to answer,

“Down here!  On the floor!”

No one’s ever going to accuse ME of not being childish.  I can easily get down to the level of a toddler.