Off to Grandma's

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In a final fling with Southwest Airlines, I have a four-legged trip on the docket: fly to the desert; fly home with Bubby so he can spend a few days with Gramma and PawDad; fly Bubby back to the desert; then fly home alone.

The first leg went off without a hitch, with me arriving in the desert early last Thursday. After a few days of fun in the sun, er, a few days of playing in the house with Bubby because the oppressive heat prevented any living thing from being outside longer than 42 seconds at a time, Bubby and I left for the mountains yesterday morning. It was his first plane ride with Grandma -- and without Mom or Dad.

Because I didn't know how long it would take for this Grandma to get through the airport with a little boy holding one hand and a car seat in the other -- Bubby is now two and gets his own seat on the plane, thus needs to bring along his own car seat for maximum protection in the air -- we arrived with plenty of time to kill.

Which meant there was a lot of waiting. 

And waiting.

And waiting.

And still more waiting.

Then finally ... we got to get on the plane ...

... and head for the mountains.

Nothing but clear skies, happy talk from Bubby, and -- most thankfully -- no poopy diapers mid-flight.

Once we landed, there was nothing but grins all around when we met up with PawDad and his surprise companions welcoming Bubby to the mountains: Auntie Andie ...

... and Aunt B! 

Now the real fun begins!

Today's question:

What's one summer-like thing you've not yet done or accomplished this summer that you are determined to do before fall arrives?

Tweeting without Twitter

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I never thought in a million years I'd say this, but I use Twitter. Daily. Sometimes hourly.

After several years of saying how stupid the social networking site seemed to me, I'm now a tweeter. Which is kind of like a tweaker, as it is rather addictive, but it costs far less. In fact, being on Twitter pays me -- in the form of new followers and friends. Some of you reading this may have even followed me here from Twitter. (Welcome, SITSGirls!)

Anyway, so I tweet. No big deal.

Apparently it is a big deal to my daughters, though. A laughable big deal.

My daughters don't tweet; they think it's silly (like mother, like daughter, I suppose). They text, they're on Facebook, one even has a blog. But "I'd never tweet on Twitter!" is pretty much the common refrain from all three, incredulous that their mother -- a grandma, even, and someone they thought was intelligent ... on most days -- would actually participate in such drivel.

Funny thing is, my daughters do tweet. All the cussing time! Just not on Twitter. They send me little chirps and shoutouts via 140-character-or-less texts and 140-word-or-less phone calls and voicemails all day long. Which, in my opinion, puts them firmly in the "tweet" category.

The girls call or text to tweet about their trip home from work, the weather, what temperature you preheat the oven to for banana bread and on, and on, and on.

Don't get me wrong; I love their pseudo-tweeting. I truly do. I love that my daughters are comfortable calling and texting any time, any day, any night, for any reason whatsoever, however inane that reason may be.

Here is a small sampling of the pseudo-tweets I've received from my daughters just in the last two days:

"I finally feel like I have friends again!"

"What do I do if the power goes out?"

"Have you accessed my bank account for any reason?"

"Yay! I signed a lease!"

"I've never hated a job as much as I hate this one."

See what I mean? Those are tweet-worthy texts and telephone calls. More like Twitter direct messages, but Twitter talk just the same.

The one serious difference between tweets from my girls and tweets from my Twitter pals? No matter how often they tweet, no matter how often they bug the cuss out of me with the chirping, I can't unfollow the girls. There's definitely no "unfollow" button when it comes to my lovely offspring. And in all honesty, I don't want there to be. (Some folks on Twitter? Well, that's a different story. And I do use the unfollow button.)

Oh, and another big difference: Retweeting certain tweets from the girls is bad. Very, very bad. And may result in a total lockout of the service.

Which means this post will likely get me a big 'ol #mymomdoesntknowwhentokeephermouthshut mention.

If only the girls knew what that means.

And how to do it.

But they don't.

Because they're not on Twitter.

Ha!

Today's question:

Do you find it easier to form new friendships online or in real life? Why?

Mars and scars

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Bubby had an accident a couple days ago: Running out to the car with Mommy, he bit it ... on asphalt ... HOT, desert asphalt.

It was his first big owie to leave a mark. Megan wrote on her blog,* "To my horror there was blood covering his poor, no longer perfect, 21 month old knee."

Bubby was okay but he's now marred, no longer perfect.

Those of you who have been a mom a while know that although this was pretty traumatic for Megan -- and Bubby -- this owie will fade, not only on Bubby's knee, but in memory, too.

But, sorry to say, Megan, there are bigger owies to come, ones that will make Bubby's skinned knee pale (probably even disappear) in comparison. Years from now you won't recall this bloody "mess," as Bubby kept calling it. What you'll recall are the bigger owies, the ones that leave lifelong scars.

I vividly recall the first scarring incident with Brianna. She was 15 months old and running around the living room of our small apartment. (Crazy kid started walking at 9 months!) It was all fun and games, of course, until she got hurt -- falling into the corner of the coffee table, gashing open her face near her eyebrow ... and narrowly missing her eye! Blood, blood, blood! Everywhere! It was my first experience with facial cuts -- which bleed like mad -- and my first experience with a seriously wounded baby. It was pretty horrible. And it's the reason why we did without a coffee table for years and years and years. Even now, as a grandma, my coffee table is ROUND with no corners waiting to gash open little faces.

Megan's first scar came on a little less fast and furious but involved surgery. Like I've said before, Megan was always destined to be a mom. She loved kids younger than her from Day One, especially her younger cousins. She played with them, mothered them and carried them around -- and got a hernia to underscore my rants that she shouldn't be lifting the little ones when she was just a little one herself. I can't remember how old she was ... maybe 6 or so ... but my little Meggie actually had to have surgery to repair a hernia at that young age and still has the scar to prove her early mothering inclinations.

The scars with Brianna and Megan were fairly traumatic for me as a mommy, for them as kiddos. But my poor Andie had, without a doubt, the absolute worst initiation into scarring.

It started off painless enough: Andie had warts. She had warts on her hands, she had warts in a spot just below her bottom lip. They weren't huge warts, but they were getting bigger and the doctor decided my 5-year-old Andie needed them removed -- by burning them off. She'd only feel the pin prick of the shot to numb her, he promised, so we went ahead with it.

The warts on her hands were no big deal; the ones on her face required me and a nurse to hold her down for the shot right into her chin ... which obviously hurt my baby like hell. After a moment or two to let the numbing kick in, the doctor had me stand at the head of the table and firmly hold Andie's head down while he approached her face with the burning hot rod (this was before the harmless lasers). When he touched her face with it she SCREAMED! The numbing stuff hadn't numbed her as promised and my baby could feel the burning. Quickly the doctor announced we were already there and needed to go forward as Andie would never in a million years allow us to attempt such a thing again. So as I held down my little girl, with tears streaming down her face and mine and the nurse doing all she could to hold Andie's mouth closed and stifle the screams so the doctor could do his job, the warts were burned off. And that horrible scene was burned into both my memory and my baby girl's, leaving not only physical scars, but emotional ones, too.

So yeah, Megan, poor Bubby is marred. But at least this time it took only an Elmo Band-Aid to make it all better. Appreciate those little mars; with scars, it's not so easy.

*Megan's blog is called "Oh Schmidt!" and, naturally, features pictures of precious Bubby -- and uses his real name ... which is a little odd since I promised to never use his real name on Grandma's Briefs. Anyway, you're welcome to visit there, if you'd like.

Today's question:

How did you get your first scar and where is it?

My answer: My first scar was on my lip. When I was about 4 years old, I fell on the blade of one of those old-time ice cream makers that had real metal blades to scrape the insides of the can. If I use my tongue to press out my bottom lip, you can still see it. (I don't use my tongue to press out my bottom lip very often as it not only shows my scar, it makes me look like a monkey!)

Finding balance

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As many of you know, I've had a beef with a particular company with whom I did a bit of freelancing last year. Thirty days ago I filed a complaint with the small claims court in hopes of resolving that beef.

Thirty days ago, my day in court was scheduled for yesterday.

Thirty days ago, I didn't think about the fact that Megan and Bubby would be here on the day I was to go to court.

Well, I didn't think about it until the very moment after I agreed to the scheduled date.

Then I thought about it and dreaded it for the past thirty days.

I didn't want to go to court in the first place, but I really didn't want to go to court during the precious few hours I got to spend with Megan and Bubby.

Meeting Auntie B's kitty.More play time!Turns out having them here was exactly what I needed. They balanced out the stress, worry and soul-sucking of a morning in court* with the smiles, giggles and soul-strengthening of an afternoon with some of my favorite people in the whole wide world.

Sometimes not thinking things through pays off.

This was definitely one of those times.

*In case you wondered, I did come out ahead after my day in court. Case closed.

Today's question:

If you could have a servant (well paid, by someone else) come to your house for one hour every day, what would you have them do?

My answer: I'd have him/her do something different every day, but usually along the lines of dusting, vacuuming, and grocery shopping. Definitely the grocery shopping -- my least favorite chore!