Kid Quotes

Kids say the darnedest things.

After the Dancer's baby "Oots" was born, her husband's nephews were observing him through the nursery window.  We were all anxiously awaiting a visit with Dancer and her hubby - and maybe even holding the baby!

Youngest nephew, age 2, looked at the tiny red-and-white striped stocking cap on the baby, put there of course to keep him warm, and quipped, "He looks like a EFF (elf)!"  Santa on the brain, kid.

A little while later, after looking at the nativity scene someone had set up at the nurses station - still waiting to see the new family - the same nephew was being held by his grandmother, again, at the nursery window.  He patted her face with his chubby little hands and said, "He's not Baby Jesus?"  Grandmother didn't even try to hold her laughter as she assured him that, No, he was not Baby Jesus.

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Now for a little history:

A year ago, the Duchess was age two going on 15 - drama queen.  She had been scolded SO MANY TIMES about touching the Christmas presents, that when it finally became time to open them, she reportedly stood in her bedroom door and cried in despair, "I can NEVER open presents!" and then ran to her room weeping.  She eventually got over it.

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One more history:  Just after Lulu's 7th birthday, she and Boogah (4) were going to ride with Lovey (me) to the store, and 3-month-old Doodle would ride with mom and dad.  Mom and dad's relief that I was taking the two older kids was so strong that Lulu commented on it.

"Three must be a lot harder than two," she said, raising that one eyebrow in the way she does.  (She won't teach me how to do that).

Sometimes nobody else will do

Attention all mothers-in-law:
"There's nobody like your mama, but I.... (fill in the blank)" is not an acceptable phrase.  Especially when "mama" is sitting RIGHT THERE.

There's no "but" after that phrase.  Just accept it.  Sometimes your daughter-in-law wants her mama. Period the end. 

I can't be close enough right now to fulfill all the wishes and needs my daughter has.  But that does not mean she needs or wants anyone else to do so either.  It's a mama thing.  A little empathy please?

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Daughter the second, Turtle, keeps after me to write.  She says I'm funny.  I have trouble being funny here apparently.  It's been one complaint after another.  This has come to be the place where I can vent all those unspeakable thoughts that I can't say out loud.

My mother had no problem speaking those thoughts out loud - and nobody loved her for it.  I guess that's what I'm trying to avoid.

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Sobfest yesterday afternoon.  For the record, NOT the reason I'm going home.  You know how it is, one person gets started crying and then it's contagious.  Man, I may cry again thinking about it. 

Dancer was venting herself a little.  New mama, you know there are frustrations.  And she's trying to figure it out, I'm trying to give her room, but she feels crowded.  She told me that it's not me that's crowding her (I don't know whether it's a lie or not).  My key point was this:

"Now you know.  Now you know how you feel about that little man in there, right?" She nodded.  "THAT'S how I feel about you, when you were born, then, now and always. I love you and want to do what's best for you."

There was more, but I wanted her to know that although I was here to meet the baby, and hold him, and maybe introduce him to my voice, my main objective was to take care of her.  My job.

She has a husband, though, that is doing wonderfully.  He's pretty amazing to her.  So I feel right leaving now.  I want to be here but to stay longer would be to indulge myself.

Maybe next time I'll have a funny story.  Time to get back to the other kids and grandkids.

Feeling Awkward

There is no age limit on feeling awkward.

I'm a gramma.  Five times now.  And there are still situations that make me feel like I'm still in junior high.  Where the popular kids shun me or make me feel shunned.  Where I'm somehow the odd man out.  Why is that? Do we never grow up? Am I one day going to get to the point that I'm one of the popular kids?

Oh, wait, I was one of the popular kids.  Way back when.  Doesn't matter. Really didn't matter then either, but REALLY doesn't matter now.  Ancient history.

My daughter and I talked about it last night, when we had a moment (sort of) alone.  Her hubby had gone to get something to eat and maybe find someone who wanted to talk about something other than baby.  Baby is super important but I think he might have been feeling a little claustrophobic.

"I felt really bad for you today," she said. 

"Why?" I asked.

"Everybody here has a connection and interconnections, and your only connection here is to me. You don't really have anyone here."

And that's when I told her that it was okay, in the hospital surrounded by so many people, friends of theirs and hubby's family, to be expected.  I didn't expect to have the connections or whatever, it's not a cocktail party, the focus was pretty much on the baby.

I did tell her that I thought it was rude the first night I was here, before the baby got here, when his parents showed up about the time we were getting ready to go out to eat and more or less invited themselves along. And don't get me wrong - I think they are great folks and I really like them.  I can't tell whether they like me or not because there is little that we talk about outside of our children and, now, common grandchild.  I sometimes think they wonder how such an amazing girl as my daughter came from someone like me.  But maybe that's just my current jr. high insecurity talking.

His parents showed up with a Christmas tree, which was great.  And, as I said, they came to dinner as well.  They paid for it, but that didn't make up for the fact that I wanted to spend some time with my daughter, just catching up, touching base, getting those wordless messages you get when she doesn't have her game face on.  With the in-laws there, the game face was on and I felt excluded. 

I sat next to Pooh, preservation of everyone's dignity I guess.  She has a tendency to draw attention, sometimes in negative ways, and I was REALLY trying to make this a good visit. Mother-in-law seated herself next to Dancer and proceeded to dominate one-on-one conversation with her.  HELLO MY TIME!  I was miffed but I don't think it showed to anyone but my daughter.  Really, I wanted time with her as much as I could without an audience of thousands.  I mean, I live five hours away, I'd made the trip with much effort.  If it could be just me, that would be easier to go back and forth, but it can't.  I just don't have anyone I trust to take care of Pooh several days running.  Which is MY OCD showing there, but whatever.

So there I was feeling like I was sitting with the popular crowd but being ignored.  Didn't want to embarass my daughter so.  I just let myself continue to be ignored and only brought it up last night when she mentioned feeling bad for me. 

It so makes me wonder what it would be like if it were the other way around?  Would the Mother-in-law get that junior high feeling when she visited?  I'll probably never know.

Long Awaited

New baby born today - he still doesn't have a name, which has been an ongoing issue for a lot of people that have driven my daughter crazy about it.  She wants to get to know him a little better first before she hands him a moniker that may be totally inappropriate.  That girl takes her naming seriously.

He was due nearly a week ago - December 13.  She wanted to have him as naturally as possible, go with the flow.  I had hoped that she would be able to.  But the OB kinda pushed a little - stripped the membranes - in order to get the juices flowing, I guess.  THAT was Wednesday.  Dancer was really getting impatient by late last night, almost to the point of "I'm going to be pregnant FOREVER" but not quite. 

She texted me at 5:45 this morning - "Contractions but no rush.  Will call in a little while".  Nearly 8am they were leaving for the hospital.  I waited about an hour and even though the monitors were showing mild contrations about every 2-3 minutes, she appeared to be in more pain that was warranted by the monitors. 

After nearly 4 hours, she finally opted for an epidural - a bit sad that she couldn't take it, she was, but moving on is the name of the game here.  She told me (as everyone but her husband was banned from the room) that things moved pretty quickly after that, there was no time to bring in moms and moms-in-law for last minute advice.  SHE SAID it moved pretty quickly.  I SAID that was a crock because we waited for hours, nearly four hours after the epidural.  She was pushing the whole time.

Little man is a mircle.

Global Warming? Really?

I mean, seriously?  Y'all are going to try to sell me on global warming.  Ummm, I don't think so.

In case you hadn't noticed, this is Alabama.  SOUTH Alabama.  And we've had temperatures more suited to, oh, say, CANADA.  Sixteen degrees?  So not about the global warming.  Now, give me 70 in December, in Alabama, maybe even A/C weather on Christmas, then talk to me about "global warming".

All of which was to say this:  Crap, I'm cold.  Yes, I know I'm a weinie, this is why we don't live in Chicago, thanks.  But, like, 30 degrees is the warmest it's been in DAYS. 

I need a Snuggie. Or not. They are really ugly and if they are not cotton, no, thanks.  I'm sensitve that way.

Best and Worst of Christmas - Memories of My Sister

Due to an tragic accident in middle school, my sister - let's call her "Pixie" - was never able to bear a child. I want to tell about the worst Christmas we spent together and the one that I will always cherish the most.  And both were centered around Pixie.

Christmas 1984. My husband had passed away in August, leaving me with four small children, a new job, a new house, and all alone.  I just didn't want to do it.  It was the darkest time of my life thus far.  Adding insult to injury, my baby sister soon after that, that her five year marriage was over. 

"He's been sleeping with someone else - I haven't been with him for months, not since I found out, I just can't.  And now he wants out because she's pregnant."  Double ouch.

Not for the first time, I wondered to myself, what was worse? Divorce or death?  At least as a widow, I had closure. She still saw him nearly everywhere she went.
So Pixie and I spent that bleak Christmas Eve wrapping Santa gifts and weeping on each other's shoulders, for broken hearts and broken dreams and hope blown away like ashes.  I was so glad to have her there the next morning.  I would have been a basket case without her.

Three years later, after careful deliberation, I had quit my job to be Mama.  I figured if I budgeted carefully I could just about do it.  And I could, and did, but it left little room for things like, oh, I don't know, CHRISTMAS PRESENTS.  I had managed to scrape together about $100 for Santa, which, while it's better than a lot of people had - and have - felt pitifully thin for four kids.  I was all ready to make the best of it - who needs dozens of more toys anyway? - when my golden-hearted sister came to me with an idea. 

"I want to be Santa this year," Pixie said.  "It's not much, but I have $300 I've been saving for a rainy day and I think it's storming right about now."

I didn't want to let her, it felt selfish and greedy.  Then she said, "I'll never be able to play Santa for any of my own," and my heart broke for her.  Suddenly, letting her be Santa seemed exactly right.

We planned a big shopping blowout weekend, just the two of us, and managed to make that $300 (Guilty, I used the original $100 on non-Santa stuff) go a LONG long way.  We had SO MUCH FUN visiting toy stores, craft stores, kids' clothing stores (the older two girls were 7 and 9, so clothes were really becoming important to them), then hours wrapping everything.  In the "true" spirit of Santa, she kept everything hidden in her apartment until the appointed hour. 

This particular Christmas Eve was very different.  We giggled like school girls over our selections, sang as we stuffed stockings, stayed up way too late reminiscing over childhood Christmases past.  I remember wanting those moments with her to last forever.

And the next morning, Christmas morning, my Pixie sister experienced the joy of being Santa first hand.

Survivor

Well, I survived the weekend.

I didn't get much sleep Friday night (hello 4am with a squirming toddler - I'm way too old for this!) but I did manage to nap a bit to make up for it on Saturday. LATE Saturday, as the Baby Boy and his wife didn't make it until almost 2pm.  But that's ok.  If free overnight babysitting is what he wanted for his birthday, my sanity barely cost me a thing.  I mean, I did survive raising four children of my own - and with the constant "help" of my parents.

That's probably not fair. My parents were always a lot of assistance, helping me to keep the balance, allowing me to keep a position where I could spend most of my time being mother to my kids.  With four of them, and one of them special needs - VERY special needs (bless her, she still is special needs, but not so hospital-y as she was as a child), keeping balance was near impossible on my own.  My mom would either stay with her in the hospital or take her to clinics as needed, and let me focus on the other three from time to time, or vice versa.  The thing is, mother guilt, my own personal mother guilt, with the added assistance of my mother acting like she was doing it ALL while I took the easy road EVERY TIME, ate away at my sanity.

I could not have done it all without my parents' help, but it did extoll a price.

Lesson learned:  Parents are parents of their own children.  They may ask Lovey for help, but Lovey must remember, that in the end, PARENTS ARE PARENTS OF THEIR OWN CHILDREN.  I don't have to approve of their methods - occasionally I do have to suffer the results of their methods - but I also don't have to live with them full time.  Any fallout, long term, will fall on them.  If what they are doing is a mistake. 

The converse is also true:  I can't take credit for what they are doing right, except for once-removed. 

Credit for raising children, whether it takes a village or what, has always been a pet peeve of mine.  Probably because so many other people have tried to bask in the reflected glow of one of my children, when they are a public success. 

My oldest, the Dancer, has been a public success most often.  LOTS of people want to take that limelight and drag it to themselves.  Makes me crazy.  There was one client I had when Dancer was in college - I never met him face to face - but my daughter had been working with the children's choir at his church for a couple of years.  He would make a legitimate call, but before he would disconnect, EVERY TIME, he would ask, "So how's our girl?"

Um, she's not OUR anything.  She's mine. but mostly she owns herself.  I worked hard to teach all of my kids that.

Why did that absolutely burn me?  I'll tell you why.  She worked HARD for everything she got, both then and now, and none of what thanks to anything I'd done except be her mama.  When she needed me.  But there have been dozens of "friends", relatives, her employers, etc, who tried to take ownership of all she had accomplished (and they still do it and it still makes me crazy).  Her grandmother was the worst. 

"You know, I helped raise her," she'd say.  As if Dancer would be wandering around, still in diapers and sucking a paci if it were left up to me.

PS - sorry for the despairing turn.  Didn't mean that.  Dancer is on my mind today, she is expecting her first (it's a boy) and her due date is today.  I'm expecting a call.  I'm also trying to remind myself how to be the most amazing grandmother / mother / mother-in-law EVAH.

Sleeping Babies - the More the Merrier

Baby Boy turned 28 yesterday. 

He called about 3:45pm to tell me he was stuck in Monkeytown working.  Literally stuck.  Several of them had ridden to work together and the guy who drove them had gotten sick early on and left them all there on their own.  "Can you keep the kids so Dilly can come pick us up?" he asked.  Well, Dilly and I had already discussed me keeping the kids a little while so they could have a date night for his birthday. So it was all good, except that date night was screwed.  Unless you want date night with a cast of thousands. 

Even though they were not supposed to be spending the night - I'm trying to keep it loose because Lovey's baby number 5 is due ANY MINUTE NOW - they were making their nests, so I called Baby Boy and told him to just leave the munchkins with me overnight.  They were actually on the way to get them, but we argued about it and he finally gave in.  What? I'm his mama, he has to do what I say :).

This may have been a mistake.  Because now it's 4am and I am totally awake.  I have three sleeping babies, although the older two would argue that they are not babies.  The older two fell asleep watching TV on the blow up mattress in the middle of the living room floor and Doodlebug is sprawled on the sofa.  Who knew that a 20-month-old could take up so much room?  That, and she waffles between being a cuddler (wants to snuggle while she sleeps) and a "I-need-to-sleep-on-your-head"-er.  Ugh.  Which explains why it's 4am and why I'm blogging.

And why I'm done.  I don't want her to wake up screaming because I'm not there.

Saturday with the Grandbabies

I should have written this last week while it was still fresh, but the body is weak.  So here goes:

About a month ago my daughter, Turtle, found out that her office was having a huge corporate change-over and software update to be completed the weekend of Memorial Day. End-of-month is also a hugely busy time for her boyfriend (I believe I will call him WoW because of his hobbies, ya think?) and since he is tech support for the weekends, they needed someone to help with the munchkin, the three-year-old Duchess.  I was agreeable and hatched a plan.

Playground, playground, and more playground! Followed by - you might guess - a trip to Lovey's for Arts and Crafts, and more playing as needed.  I called Baby Boy and checked on the status of his older two, Lulu and Boogah, found them both available for Saturday afternoon into evening and proceeded to pick up all children.  I would have taken Doodle as well, but she's just a beginner when it comes to walking, the Duchess tends to run without regard to her surroundings, and I still have to push a wheelchair.  So, sorry, Doodle, no playgrounds for you today.

I went to get the Duchess first.  Turtle was already at work, so she was at home with WoW coloring and wanting to play ball.  On the one hand, she was eager to go with Lovey, but only if Daddy (WoW) came with us. 

For nearly ten miles of country road she wept, "I can't say bye-bye to Daddy! I can't say bye-bye!" 

WoW was so stressed out by her tears that he called me twice in that ten minutes.  Then she saw a train and forgot about it all.

I did not notice the train, I was noticing the storm clouded sky and occasional sprinkles.  Uh-oh, monkey wrench in the plans.  But there's always a backup.

After we went to get Lulu and Boogah, and it was obvious that an outdoor playground was not going to be a good idea, we headed to the indoor playground at MickeyD's, otherwise known as "Happy Donal's" to the Duchess.  Thank GOODNESS for indoor playgrounds!!  This turned out to be a great plan as they were all starving.  Happy Meals all around and all the soda they could hold.

Two hours.  Upside was, they had a blast;  Boogah, usually a little bit timid, became the daredevil of the huge swirly slide; and the Duchess, who usually will not climb all the way to the top without her mommy, went up with Lulu and slid down with her several times until she got brave enough to do so on her own.  Red letter day people!  The picture is the only one I got all day with all three of them - they were moving so fast! - and that's not a good one. You can't see Boogah's face.  He's going through a stage anyway where he objects to having his picture taken.

After those two hours - and I figured the McD people were going to come kick us out - we prepared to leave for Lovey's house.  But lo and behold! Sunlight!  The storm had passed!  I called and checked with parents who were tuned into the weather to make sure they had no objections and we headed to the big playground. 

Again, no photos! I got a little bit of video but with three kids moving in three different directions - and me having to make sure that PoohBear's wheelchair was in a safe place at all times - not much video and sadly, no pictures. 

Thre was a family reunion going on in one of the pavilions, but no one was on the playground.  It was WET!  But the kids didn't care and I had a change of clothes for the Duchess and the others were less than ten minutes from home.  So I let them get soaked and dirty.  I mean, why else go to a playground?

Lulu and Boogah played hide and seek with each other, occasionally pausing to grab a handful of Doritos from the big bag I brought and snagging a bottle of juice or water from my stash.  Pooh and I kept a pretty close watch on the Duchess, as she has a tendency to wander without looking.  She had a pretty good time on the swings and then writing in the sand with a stick she found beneath a sprawling oak.  I could tell she wanted to slide and play hide and seek with the big kids, but the slides were a bit larger (and ended much farther from the ground) and all in all a little scary. 

Before we left, the kids from the family reunion came over and played.  The Duchess wanted so badly to play ball with the boys tossing a football around.  She kept shouting, "I can catch it! Throw it, I can catch it!"  One of them finally did and..... she dropped it.

Still.  Two hours after we first got there, the rain started showing signs of coming back in.  No lightning, but Pooh was starting to not have a good time.  I gradually got them all herded back to the van.  A change of clothes later, we were heading to Lovey's house.

The older two love the computers, like maybe they don't have computers at home, they do, but they love playing on my computers and I don't know why.  They played Nick Jr and games from a horse website Lulu found while I played with the Duchess for a bit.  Didn't take them long to drift to their craft baskets - I try to always have something new and interesting to do in there - and colored, painted, glued, and cut to their heart's content. 

Eventually Baby Boy and his wife (and Doodle) and Turtle showed up to eat (they brought Boston butt, I just had to provide the sides) and take their charges home. 

And I, Lovey, got a well-earned rest :)

Always Now

My oldest - I've been calling her "Dancer" but maybe a better name would be "Teacher" because that's mostly what she is these days - anyway, she gave me a very VERY rough cut of the CD that she is cutting with her husband and some musician friends of her music. 

TOO COOL! 

This is the second or third CD she has partcipated in, but the first that will be totally her music.  I would share but she is in the process of COPYRIGHTING (awesome, right?) and maybe also publishing on iTunes. 
I've listened to my very rough cut - and it is rough, some of my favorites are scratchy sounding because I think the CD made the trip from Georgia on the floor - about 25 times.  This is very weird but I can trace my daughter's love life and KNOW where she was with each of the songs.  What's weird about it is that no less than THREE of the songs she has said, "Um, that's NOT about me." 

Huh.

Especially the one that I told her sounds angry she says is not about her at all.  It puts one in mind of abuse, whether physical or mental or emotional (needless to say, it's not my fave) and I guess she has totally blocked out where she got the idea for it.  SO I retold her a story that she told me more than ten years ago about her then-boyfriend (not the now-husband, thank you) and - get this - SHE DID NOT REMEMBER IT! 

This brings me to something that I wrote before.  Writing painful stuff somehow seems to let it go for me and obviously for her.  She has kept a journal for nearly 20 years.... OMG am I THAT old???  I have some early samples, where she was just writing in school notebooks.  But she still has most of them and uses them for song ideas.

Hm.  I have never been a good journal writer, but I do have a diary from back in the day. Maybe I need to get it out and read what I've forgotten.

Too many things to count

I have way too many things to write about. Every day.  Little irritants at work and on the road, the Jerry Springer Show aspects of my life that I try mightily to ignore.  Too much to say, sometimes. 

I do find that sometimes writing either here or elsewhere purges something that builds up to the point I can't stand it any more. Sometimes it seems to make it worse.

Writing about my first baby and the way my mother-in-law handled it - kind of a purge. Because it occurred to me that in the end, she is the one who has suffered, perhaps the most.  As a result of that total breach of trust, sneaking around to feed my baby a bottle just because she disapproved of breastfeeding - in the end, that set the tone of her relationship with me and mine.  In the end, because she proved to me that I could not trust her to take care of my children the way I wanted them cared for, she had moved herself to my People I Don't Trust to Take Care of My Children Without Supervision list. 

For the past 30+ years, in spite of her crying to my husband before he passed, in spite of multiple overtures and offers, she was rarely trusted to spend time alone with my kids.  That was re-confirmed about 6 years ago when she went out of her way to show the kids pictures of their father's funeral. Against my better judgement, I allowed her to take pictures (she's kind of a ghoul that way, must be a Southern thing?  I don't know) with the understanding that my children would never see them.  She judged that they were old enough - well, yeah, they were/are adults but still it's the principle - and pulled out the pics at Christmas  of all things, and passed them around.  I was furious all over again.

But still... she is still the loser in all this...

Today, all of my children and grandchildren who live locally came for a visit.  They called it an informal playdate, although it wasn't really.  We ate hamburgers and mac-n-cheese, cleared the kitchen table and played with paints and colors and stickers and glue - craft time at Lovey's house.

I called MIL and told her they were here - since the purge of blogging I found it in my heart to feel for her isolation from her grandkids.  She lives like three miles away.  She didn't come because she wasn't feeling well. 

I know too little too late perhaps on my part.  But it just goes to show that trust violated is not easily re-instated.

On a happier note, I like to think of my home as a haven for my kids and grandkids.  I think they do as well.  We had tons of fun, they got away with not eating veggies (Hello? It's LOVEY'S house, it's ok ) playing with crafts and having them declared be-yoo-ti-full.  The DUCHESS, who will be three next week, kept saying, "It's very very shiny and sparkly Lovey."  LULU made a wonderful birthday invitation (our project for the day), just awesome, and BOOGAH ignored all the princess stuff and simply painted on plain paper.  He wanted an invitation to take home so he could "decorate" it later.

I regret that my mother-in-law was not here to share in the love and laughter of my children.