"Black Swan," the grandma version

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A letter to my daughter:

Dear Megan,

My “Black Swan” title refers to the film of the same name depicting dark competition amongst ballerinas

I'm sure you're wondering why I didn't comment on the blog post you wrote about your gratitude for Preston's grandma -- Bubby's great-grandma -- who came through for you when you needed a babysitter for sick Bubby last week. I know the absence of a comment from me was rather conspicuous as I have commented on every one of your posts since you started your 365 Days of Gratitude series. Except that one.

Here's the thing: Everything I considered saying would have come across as snarky and insincere. Maybe not to others, but certainly to me. Because I know that inside I have a growing resentment -- maybe more accurately, a growing disappointment -- that when you and Preston chose to move to the desert to be equally removed from both your parents in the mountains and his in the midwest as you started your life together, it ended up meaning -- unintentionally, I know -- that his grandma, who lives less than an hour from the destination you chose, automatically by virtue of proximity, got the role in your life and Bubby's (and soon Birdy's, too) that I wanted.

I agree that Preston's grandma is a wonderful person for Bubby, and I'm glad you have help when you need it. But, like I said, that's the role I wanted, and it saddens me to see the glowing reviews she gets for doing what I want to do. Her role should be great-grandma; the role of grandma should be played by me. But because I'm far away, I lost out. In so many ways.

Further salt in the wound, once Preston's parents move there this year as they've planned, followed by his sister and her fiance and, eventually I'm sure, his brother, I'll lose out even more -- your family will lose out more -- as his entire family will have the role in your lives that your family wants. Or at least wants an equal share of. But because your lives and home are there and our lives and home -- which we won't leave -- are here, we get the secondary role.

Yes, it was all unintentional. And yes, there's nothing you can do about his family moving there. But still, I'm resentful. I'm disappointed. And pats on the back for successfully maintaining a long-distance relationship with my daughter and my grandchildren are of little consolation. I don't like the long-distance role; I want a role with more stage time. I know it simply can't be -- regardless of the reasons why -- but that doesn't make it any easier.

I'm a young grandma and it's fairly early in the grandparenting phase, so I know I will eventually have the role I want: the role of doting grandmother who gets weekly interaction, who covers babysitting shifts on a regular basis and in emergencies, who hosts Easter and Christmas gatherings for family who won't travel on those holidays, who attends Grandparents Day at school, who attends children's recitals at church. I will get that; I know that. Unfortunately, it just won't be with your children, my first grandchildren. And it won't be for quite some time, as your sisters certainly -- luckily, actually -- won't be having kids any time soon.

So in the meantime, while I wait to garner that role of a lifetime, I will do my best to not come across as snarky, to not appear resentful, to not wear my disappointment on my sleeve regarding the role I desperately wanted, the role I sadly missed out on.

Which is exactly why I didn't comment on your post.

Love,

Mom

Today's question:

What role have you missed out on, in personal or professional situations or otherwise?

Freeze frame

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Today I head to the desert for a five-day visit with Bubby. To him, though, it will likely feel more like a five-day photo shoot -- Gramma takes lots of pictures! By the end of a few days together with Bubby, I usually have 500 or more photos. Enough to get me through until the next time we meet. Enough to last as blog graphics for a few months. Enough to mark our time together.

I'm big on photos. I see them as a record of one's own personal history. When memories of a time, an event, a life fade, the photos are there to remind.

As I get older, I realize my memories are fading fast, yet I hold few photos of my childhood to remind me. In fact, the following photos are the only photos I have of my life before the age of 10. (I have just as few of the years after age 10 -- until I got my own camera at 16 -- but I'll refrain from sharing those as my teeth became more crooked and the hairstyles more funky. Definitely not cute shots, not worth sharing.)

Sibling No. 1, Sibling No. 2, and me, Sibling No. 3.  Sibling No. 4 and me. Siblings Nos. 1-4 and a dog whose name I can't recall. Me, beautiful Bonnie, and Sibling No. 4.

Siblings Nos. 1, 3 (me) and 4 on Dad's parade float for his business. Siblings Nos. 5 & 6 (twins) and me (maybe me?).

The crooked teeth and funky hairstyles begin. Siblings Nos. 2 and 3 on one snowmobile, me with Dad on the other.

The gang of seven (siblings). Paternal grandparents and all seven of us.

Most of us in Florida. I'm second. (Minnesotans not used to sun!) Again, in Florida.

And that's it -- my only photographic reminders of early childhood. The lack of photos in my possession is not because they're in a trunk of my mom's or a stash at my dad's. Nope, that's it.

That won't be the case with my kids, my grandkids, maybe even my great-grandkids. Like I said, I take lots of pictures. I'm certain that one day they'll be thankful for all the flashing and clicking from Gramma.

And I can pretty much guarantee that despite the photos not being all that skillfully taken or perfectly composed, they will all be cute, they will all be worth sharing.

Even if their teeth are crooked and their haircuts funky.

Today's question:

What is your favorite photo of you as a child?

Rule No. 3

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When my daughters were teenagers, if they wanted their own car, they had to have an after-school job to cover the cost of gas and insurance. Those were the rules.

All three wanted their own car, so all three worked.

Which led to other rules, primarily:

1. Grades must remain satisfactory.

2. No working at fast-food restaurants.

3. Absolutely no working on Sundays.

Rule No. 1 is pretty much self-explanatory.

Rule No. 2 was due to our high expectations of the girls. There's nothing wrong with working at fast-food joints. Heck, Jim and I started dating when he was my manager at a Sonic Drive-In. But we knew our girls could do better, expected them to do better. And they did.

Rule No. 3 was enforced because Sunday was family day, no ifs, ands or "but I have to works." We went to church as a family, and nearly just as important, we shared Sunday dinner as a family. Which prohibited morning or evening shifts on the job. Luckily their employers respected and abided by Rule No. 3, mostly because the girls were good workers they didn't want to lose.

Rule No. 3 extended to more than work situations, though -- it also applied to any outings the girls wanted to attend with friends. (Exceptions were made for special events and occasions. I'm not that mean of a mom.)

On Rule No. 3, Jim and I stood firm. The girls were required to go to church with the family, required to have Sunday dinner with the family. Some things are worth fighting for, worth demanding. To us, Rule No. 3 was one of those things.

In accordance with Rule No. 3 was yet another rule -- this one for myself and Jim: No lecturing at the dinner table.

Because of our rules regarding dinner with the family, some of our most-cherished family memories are of times around the dinner table. Throughout the years, dinnertime -- and not just on Sundays -- meant catching up, sharing jokes, quelling fears, answering questions. We'd talk about movies, family, sports, friends, work, politics, music. We'd laugh. We'd snort. We'd cry. We'd lament. We'd sometimes even sing.

Then the girls grew up.

And moved away.

And the dinner table was empty. During the week and, most noticeably, on Sundays.

This past Sunday, Andrea drove from Denver, Brianna drove from across town, and we enjoyed Sunday together as a family. I can't recall the last time we had Sunday dinner together; it was surely sometime before the holidays.

It felt like a special occasion. It was a special occasion. We laughed, we remembered, we talked about movies, friends, work, sports, music. It was just like old times.

The only thing missing was Megan.

And the requirement that the girls be there.

Which made it all the more special -- and me all the more thankful -- that they were.

Photo: Flickr/Beverly & Pack

Today's question:

What is your usual Sunday dinner routine?

A bird in the hand

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Our family had a bit of a scare this week: Megan, in her 19th week of pregnancy, experienced some funky business with Bubby's brother-to-be. So her doctor ordered an ultrasound.

Thankfully, all turned out well. Baby is alive and kicking and nestled firmly in (the right) place. And Megan and Preston were once again treated to an inside look at their second son ... which they then kindly shared with the family and I now share with you:

Bubby got a kick out of his baby brother's peek-a-boo stance and joyfully played a game of the same with PawDad and me during our Tuesday night Skype session, giggling and demonstrating how he and his brother will soon play.

The baby does indeed look like he's playing peek-a-boo in the photos. He also looks, to me, like a little bird, his wings still tiny and frail but soon to be strengthened then stretched as he learns to fly and eventually soar.

The thought of him being a little bird immediately brought a song to my heart ... and an earworm to my head. This is the song, the earworm, the empowering "Little Bird" the ultrasound pics bring to mind:

SORRY! VIDEO DISAPPEARED IN BLOG REDESIGN

(Annie Lennox - Little Bird found on YouClubVideo)

In light of the way I see the little guy in the pictures and the gotta-dance-about-it song he's lodged in my head and heart -- and despite Megan and Preston not yet settling 100 percent on the baby's name, despite the cute monikers offered up when I asked for suggestions on Facebook -- I've officially chosen a name to call Bubby's brother here on the blog. Well, more accurately, a name has been chosen for me, for the baby.

So without further adieu, dear Grandma's Briefs readers, I hereby dub thee, my newest grandbaby ... Birdy!

Stay tuned for the further adventures -- and peek-a-boo games! -- of Birdy and Bubby.

(PS: Just for kicks, take a look at Birdy's mouth and nose in the first ultrasound picture, then scroll down to the picture of Bubby in the "Changes on the way" post from two days ago. Do they not look alike already?)

Today's question:

When did you last have a "shew!" experience, a moment of relief when you -- literally or figuratively -- wipe your brow, sigh "shew!" and feel like everything's going to be okay?

Calendar girl

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Yesterday I copied all the birthdays and anniversaries from my 2010 calendar onto my 2011 calendar then added the old calendar to my stack of those I've saved for years -- every year since 1997, to be exact.

I abhor packrats and do my best not to be one, so holding onto reminders of dentist appointments and "No School" dates of years past may seem in opposition to my cause. But the old calendars are so much more than appointment reminders: They are time in a bottle. Snapshots of the hustle and bustle of a once busy household. A record of the good, the bad, the scary, the sweet -- an organic record that didn't require me to journal or scrapbook or keep a diary or update a blog to maintain it.

Most of the markings on the grids of daily happenings are in my handwriting. Others are in the handwriting of one or another of the girls, applied in painstakingly perfect penmanship befitting an occasion important enough to be included on the family calendar for all to consider in their schedule.

Each notation holds much more than just a record of where we had to be and what time we had to be there, though. They hold stories, stories that bring mostly grins (birthday parties and school sporting events) and groans (dentist appointments and work schedules). Others cause my eyes to well up, my heart to grow a little cold, and a lump to form in my throat. Those are the notations of occasions that serve as poignant reminders of our challenges, the growing pains that strengthened our family fabric and made it the resilient, tight-knit one it is today.

As I skim the calendars before placing them back on the shelf for another year, here are some of the scribbles that touch my heart:

April 28, 1997: "Closing" - This is the date we officially bought the house we rented for 10 years before finally getting up the nerve -- and the income -- to ask our landlords if we could buy it. It's the house that became the childhood home of our three girls, the place we raised them all, from kindergarten through college.

July 21-25, 1997: "Brianna in Texas" - Brianna went to Work Camp; we remodeled our new house to add a fourth bedroom while she was gone. Andrea and Megan rejoiced at no longer having to share a room, no longer having to divide the space with duct tape down the center. Jim and I rejoiced that the bickering would end.

May 25, 1998: "Andie leaves" - Andrea spent a week at Sea Camp in San Diego and to this day still dreams of working with dolphins. Somewhere. Somehow. Which is a tad challenging considering she lives in the Rocky Mountains.

March 22, 1999: "5:30 a.m. Brianna skiing" - Clinches the heart a bit as Brianna will likely never ski again after the damage done to her back when her (stopped) car was rear-ended at a stoplight by a landscaping truck.

April 24-25, 1999: "Retaining wall" - One of the many "huh?" markings on the calendars, important at the time but now completely forgotten.

October 15, 1999: "UNC College Day" - Our first visit to check out a college for our first-born.

July 18, 2000: "Test w/HR 2:30" - The beginning of my newspaper career.

July 28-29, 2000: "American Co-ed Pageant" - Megan needed college funds and left no stone unturned. She won no pageant money but we both received an unexpected -- and unpleasant -- introduction to pageantry and "pageant moms." Believe me when I say Little Miss Sunshine resonates.

October 25-27, 2001: "Seward" - Our first visit with Megan to what would become her college town. And eventually Andrea's college town.

June 22-27, 2002: "Disney World" - Our last vacation as a family. <sniff>

June 29, 2002: "Marked words: Brianna will NOT be with Eric at this time next year!" - Too funny now. What's not funny is that marking one's words doesn't make things magically come true ... or eliminate the need to keep marking them.

May 25, 2003: "Andie's Graduation Party" - My baby, my last daughter, graduated and soon off to college.

June 27, 2003: "I'm old" - Any guess as to whose birthday this was?

July 22, 2006: "Meg's wedding!"

June 18, 2008: "BUBBY!" - Okay, it doesn't really say "Bubby," it says his real name. An all-caps pronouncement of joy just the same.

December 5, 2008: "D-Day!" - This was the day my layoff was scheduled ... and occurred. The end of my stint as a special sections editor. The end of my newspaper career.

Sprinkled throughout the calendar pages, amidst notes about the girls going on mission trips, attending prom, graduating from high school and college, are red-letter dates of concerts and performances that Jim and I were to attend: Pearl Jam, Live, Tommy, Black Crowes, Rent, Counting Crows and more. Memorable occasions all. But my pile of ticket stubs serves as a better reminder of those particular dates. And, yes, serves as another large stack of paper this non-packrat refuses to get rid of.

On second thought, maybe I am a packrat after all. A sentimental packrat with lots of memories worth holding on to.

Today's question:

What do you do with your old calendars?

9 things I will NOT do in 2011

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While lots of folks are making lists of all the things they plan to do in the new year, I'm taking the other tack and offering up 9 things I will not do in 2011:

1. I will not give up coffee. You can't make me, you can't make me, you can't make me.

2. I will not join a gym. At least not until I'm in better shape.

3. I will not become an alcoholic, a position covered quite well by plenty of people around me. As Mattie Ross said in the original True Grit, "I won't put a thief in my mouth to steal my brain." (That doesn't mean, of course, that I won't let a thief borrow my brain now and then; lending it out on occasion can be quite enjoyable when in the right company.)

4. In the same vein, I will not be an enabler for those around me who allowed their brains to be stolen. And I will not be an enabler of the enablers who are enabling those with missing brains to death. Literally.

5. I will not get too serious on this blog. Or too revealing. Or too personal. Most of the time.

6. I will not snigger or snort at whatever name Megan and Preston choose for my second grandson. Unless it's BillyBobJoeDon. Or Ashton. Or SkippyJon Jones (thanks, Mrs. Mayhem).

7. I will not get frustrated while trying to improve my photo-editing skills. And photo-taking skills. Okay ... I will not lie, either, so disregard what I just said about photos.

8. I will not give up -- on my books, my blog, my bank account. Or my dreams of the lives my girls should be leading. Or my dream of winning PCH ... or the lotto.

9. I will not make resolutions. At least not those that I'm darn-shooting sure from the get-go that I won't come within spitting distance of accomplishing.

Photo: Petr Kratochvil

Today's question:

What will you NOT do in 2011?