Makin' Up Stories

Instead of reading stories before bed, the babes and I frequently make up stories. One person will start, pausing where someone else is to add a word or take over the story line.

Last night I started a story about a boy with four cats and a dog. Ridley named the boy's father "Jim", and Boston named his mother "Rosa". The boy became "Sam", and the cats were "Sally", "Willie", "Sarah", and "Wally". Then I asked Ridley what breed of dog Sam had. She said, "a Chocolate Puff." Hmm, that's not a breed with which I'm familiar.

I asked her what a Chocolate Puff was. She said, "You know. A Chocolate Puff. Like Guide."

That would be a Chocolate Lab to the rest of us. The photo above? Guide, at nine weeks, when he moved in next door.

Jaci's Live Blog

Jaci, with the help of cameraman Tyler, is live-blogging from New Orleans. Her posts are must-see Internet. If you have never met Jaci, a single viewing of these videos will explain to you why everyone who knows her falls in love with her. Her personality just glows through these videos.

Go. Read. And keep checking back for more as the week progresses.

Day 1
Day 2

Did You Vote?

How nice that my life thsi week is including quiet post-8:30am mornings into which I can slip a conversation with an old friend or a pastry at Panera. Or voting without stress.

If you're a Mahoning County reader, please vote to keep the light on at our libraries.

Go vote—it's your right, your privilege, your obligation.

The Grandma Report, Days 1 and 2

I have made it through two days as full-time grandma; it's 8:45 and I'm ready for sleep!

Yesterday began at 6:00 a.m., involved a PIT airport run at 8:30 a.m., an afternoon at the Akron zoo, and a dinner of fish sticks followed by a make-up-the-rules-as-you-go game of Pictionary.

This morning I was up at 6:00 to get my shower and be ready to go before the babes got up at 6:50. Unfortunately, I had a headache that started around 3:00 a.m. We got breakfast, clothes, practiced piano, put the dogs out, scraped frost off the windshield, and made it to school in time. My day continued with iced tea and the crossword at Panera, then my annual GYN appointment, a run into BB&B for a new shower curtain, a quick call to the office to try to solve a problem, picking the babes up from school, errands, more piano practicing, a cupcake-making session, more fish sticks, and a game of Life.

By the time I turned their light out at 8:15, I was totally ready to drop onto my bed. My head is still hurting, and I'm trying to stay awake long enough so I won't wake at 4:30 tomorrow morning. Rain is forecast for tomorrow, and snow showers for tomorrow night. As soon as this weather settles down, my head will stop hurting and I'll be a more long-suffering grandma.

There were a couple of high points to the day. One was seeing how low my blood pressure was at the doctor and realizing it was a result of the beta blocker. So: higher weight, but fewer headaches and lower blood pressure.

The other high point came at the end of our game of Life after dinner tonight. Boston said, "That was fun. I'd much rather do that than watch television." When is the last time you heard your 8yo say something like that? I was thrilled.

I feel privileged to pick them up from school and hear their conversations about their days. Boston talked about the boy who told him he hated him. Then he talked about the girl who told him she loved him and how nice that felt after the boy saying he hated him.

I feel grateful that my son and daughter-in-law trust me enough to allow me this privilege for a week.

I feel tired.

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Several friends have asked how I'm managing work with this responsibility. I'm not. I took the whole week off—two-and-a-half days of vacation (all that's left for the year), and two-and-a-half days leave without pay. I can't imagine trying to balance work with everything that's required to manage these kids' lives.

The Word of the Day

My grandchildren's vocabulary never ceases to amaze me. I'm spending the week with them, so am getting lots of amazing moments.

Today we stopped at Wendy's for lunch on the way to the Akron Zoo. DGD, ever amazed at her own ability to tell jokes (funny is in the brain of the beholder, dontcha know?), asked me if I knew what the dummy's favorite restaurant was. When I gave up, she responded, "Denny's". Okay, so Denny's is the babes' favorite restaurant, and "dummy's" and "Denny's" sort of sound alike. Vaguely.

I told her I didn't find her joke funny. DGS then said, "It's awkward." I asked him what was awkward. He said, "Her joke." Awkward. Hmmm.

Then in the evening after finishing our dinner of fish sticks and applesauce (whew, I made it through day 1), they delved into their Hallowe'en baskets. DGS came up with some candy corn, which he loves. He was sorting through the eight-or-so kernels he chose for his dessert, and held up one misshapen kernel. "This is awkward," he observed.

There you go. The word of the day, from an eight-year-old's point of view. "Awkward." Can be applied to jokes or candy.

My Grandma Instincts tell me this week is going to yield lots of blog fodder!

Soul Custody

I'm nearing the end of "Olive Kitteridge" and, although I don't like the character Olive very much, I am loving Elizabeth Strout's writing.

In the chapter I listened to on Friday's evening commute, the teenaged girl's mother had left home when the child was very small to go to Hollywood to be an actress. The teenager wanted to find and get to know her mother. Her father, a minister, told her that would be impossible, as he had filed the papers and had sole custody. The girl, when she heard that, thought he had "soul custody."

I left my children when they were small, and although I believe I acted in their best interest, I agonize—to this day—about that decision and action. Reading about a mother who leaves her child(ren) is difficult for me. Reading about the gossip and disapproval of friends and neighbors is even more difficult. An outsider can never know what goes on inside the life of another.

"I loved you so much I gave you up." What a mixed message. How seemingly hypocritical.

I've been privy to an adoption discussion on Facebook over the past few days. Adoption is such a hot topic for me. In retrospect, I believe my struggles as a parent and my struggles in my many marriages were tightly connected to being adopted. How can a person who has never felt accepted or loved or "good enough" be a partner or a parent?

One of the contributors to the adoption discussion shared the fact that a friend who had just met her true love found out they were both adopted and it gave them a special bond. My marriage to John—his third, my fourth—was the perfect marriage for both of us. His mother had died when he was three and he spent the next five years in and out of foster homes and an orphanage. I always felt we were able to fill in the holes in each other's souls, and that's why the marriage was so successful.

The fewer holes one has in her soul, the easier it is to have custody of her own soul.

Wow, That's A Lot!

There are so many lessons that must be taught to children for them to successfully navigate the world. I attempted to teach one of those to Ridley yesterday.

She and I were sharing the bathroom as we were getting ready for the babes to go back home after a sleepover at Grandma's. Ridley is fascinated by the scale in my bathroom and hops on it every time she goes into my bathroom. Every time! She still doesn't grasp the difference, at 6, between height and weight, between measuring and weighing. Sometimes she'ls look at the scale readout and say, "Look how tall I am." We're working on that lesson, for one.

Yesterday she was so proud to be "almost 80". Then, as I weighed myself before getting in the shower, she looked over at the scale and said, "Wow, that's a lot!" Ooh, bad thing to say.

I have gone back on a beta blocker, after twenty-plus years, to stem my frequent headaches. It has been a tremendous success—I've had fewer headaches in the past couple of months than in any two month period in the past, oh, ten years. The downside to the beta blocker is that I've been piling on the pounds, no matter how careful I try to be with my diet.

On the great scale of life, if I have to choose between carrying some extra pounds or dealing with daily headaches, I guess I'll take the pounds. But that doesn't mean I'm not sensitive about the weight. So I told Ridley it was better to not comment on people's weight, that it was considered rude. She said okay, and smiled.

But in retrospect, I'm thinking maybe my weight isn't as bad as the scale has been indicating. This morning, for example, I got on the scale before my shower and it said 205.5. I may be heavy, but I'm nowhere near 200 pounds!

Maybe it's time for new batteries!