Missing the ordinary everydayness

Now that my kids are long grown and long gone, I occasionally miss the little things about having kids in our midst. Like watching them fully engaged in and enjoying ordinary, everyday activities. No posing or posturing, just playing.

Fortunately I have Megan to text me photos of ordinary everyday moments that, to a grandmother, are not that ordinary at all anymore and are truly something special to see.

To wit, scenes from a recent playdate—an afternoon hosted by Bubby and Baby Mac, featuring a car wash, snack time, and play pals:

So cool to see Baby Mac hanging with the big kids. And Bubby, too, obviously relishing his role as king of festivities.

Today's question:

What ordinary everydayness do you miss from your childrearing years?

Grandma's going to the desert and in her bag she'll pack...

I leave Friday for a twelve-day visit with my grandsons—seven days of which I'll be sole caretaker of kids while Megan and Preston attend an out-of-state conference.

In campfire-game fashion, I've made a list to ensure I remember all I need for the duration of my longest desert stay yet.

Grandma's going to the desert and in her bag she'll pack...

A — Aluminum foil for trying the back yard foil river we never got around to doing last time.

B — Bandaids to share with the boys. Decorated with VeggieTale characters.

C — Coffee. Lots and lots of it. (Okay, I'm not really packing the coffee but I've made sure it's included—in bold letters—on my list of demands that Megan have on hand.)

D — DSLR camera manual. And the camera, too. In hopes I can figure out a few more fancy functions while I have super subjects for shooting.

E — Earth-friendly crafts from Green Kid Crafts. The owners of the subscription service sent me several packets o' fun to review with Bubby, including Pirate Loot, Fishbowl, Great Horned Owl Mask projects and more.

F — Frozen Planet DVD. I'm excited to share it with Bubby.

G — Glasses. And a spare pair of glasses, too. I can no longer fake my way through reading small print—sometimes not even large print—and must bring a spare just in case something happens to the first pair.

H — Humor, or a good sense of it. From what Megan says, I'm likely gonna need it as the boys have been pills of varying sorts for the past week or so.

I — Ibuprofen. I'm pretty sure I'll be needing these pills for the above-referenced pills. If they really are pills. The boys, that is, not the pain reliever.

J — Jammies that are sufficiently grandma like as I don't want to scar my grandsons for life with any unintentional over-exposure.

K — Kitchen stuff. To include vanilla candy coating, sprinkles, and my grandma apron for making Confetti Popcorn with Bubby.

L — Laptop. A telecommuting working grandma can't leave home without it.

M — Music. On my laptop, on my iPhone. Because everything's better with music...and dance parties with cute boys. Cute boys named Bubby and Baby Mac, of course. (Well, named that at least here on the blog. In real life, those cute boys go by even cuter names.)

N — Ninety-four things I'm forgetting about as of this writing. Luckily there's still time for me to remember what those ninety-four things are. I hope.

O — Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year by Anne Lamott. In-flight reading material my good friend Heather recently bought and had autographed for me. (I'll be finished by then with Lamott's excellent book about becoming a grandma, Some Assembly Required. Huge Anne Lamott fan here.)

P — Power strip for ensuring I'll have plenty of spots for plugging in my laptop, camera, and iPhone each night as I nestle into bed.

Q — Quality hugs, kisses, and grandmotherly attention to be doled out in excess.

R — Realm for Women by Erox perfume. I really stink at accessorizing, but I always wear a (light!) squirt of an understated perfume. I like to smell good. And I like to think my grandsons will always remember that Gramma smells good. (Not that my Realm was purchased with them in mind. It was actually a gift from Jim—who always remembers that I like to smell good.)

S — Stickers! Race Cars Sticker Fun for Bubby.

T — Treasure. Also known as coins. PawDad always gives me treasure I'm supposed to pass along to the grandsons. Most times I do; sometimes I forget. (Just kidding, PawDad.)

U — Underwear. Because I had nothing else that started with a U. Well, because they're a necessity, too, but you know what I mean. Umbrella is the typical U word in such lists, but it's not likely I'll need one as the forecast's for triple digit heat while I'm there. (Maybe undertaker would have been more appropriate as the heat just might do me in.)

V — VeggieTales: Robin Good and His Not-So-Merry Men DVD.

W — Water balloons and the nifty gadget that makes them easy to fill. Will be So. Much. Fun. Especially on the trampoline.

X — X-tra patience. "See H — Humor" above.

Y — Yellow crayons...and every other color of crayon, too, to be used with the coloring book I'm packing.

Z — Zoris. I received a pair of Neat Zori sandals for review, but Colorado weather is not yet conducive to sandal wear. Days in the desert, though, are a perfect opportunity to see how the shoes stand up to days upon days of active fun in the sun.

photo: stock.xchng/bb_matt

Today's question:

Any recommendations of things I should add to my bag?

Once upon an unstable grandma

Based on a long-ago experience and a memory forever ingrained in my mind, I for many years felt sorry for a childhood friend because of her grandma's instability and erratic behavior. It's only since becoming a grandma myself that I've realized that particular grandmother was not only stable as stable can be, but that I've acted just like her on occasion.

I lived in Minnesota and was in second or third grade at the time of the incident. On one particular bus ride from my school in town back to the farming community in which my family and several others lived, I was filled with excitement and anticipation. On this particular day I wouldn't be getting off the bus at my house with my siblings because I had the grand privilege of disembarking a few stops from my own for an afternoon of fun at my friend Lynn's house for the very first time.

Lynn, my beautiful friend with long, straight, brunette hair—which she always wore high up on her head in the most marvelous of buns or braids or "high ponytails" I could never manage to make stay put on my own head—had full reign of her house as an only child. And it was her live-in grandma who cared for her each afternoon. Such a very different scenario from my own house, where I was third oldest in a line of seven kids, and my oldest brother and sister ruled the roost each afternoon until Mom and Dad got home from business in town.

Lynn and I chattered excitedly and held hands throughout the lengthy bus ride. When we got off at her stop, we raced down the dirt drive to her house and dashed right through the front door and into the kitchen. Which was empty. And quiet. I found the bare room and the silence unnerving, but Lynn simply smiled and called out for her grandmother. After a few moments and no response, Lynn started tiptoeing from room to room, calling "Grandma." No answer. Not in the living room, the hallway, the bathroom. Not upstairs or down.

Lynn seemed unfazed. I, though, was certain her grandmother had fallen somewhere and was hurt or had been gagged, bound and locked away in the attic by a dastardly drifter who'd entered Lynn's home with murder on his mind. Or worse, I feared the ghosts my older sister swore haunted the fields of the farms had spirited Lynn's poor grandma away.

Of course I didn't share such horrific thoughts with my friend. I didn't want to scare her.

Lynn, still smiling, nonchalantly led me to her bedroom to—unbelievably in the midst of such circumstances—engage in our pre-planned afternoon play. But suddenly, as we were nearly to Lynn's room, a closet door flew wide open and banged against the wall. Then her grandmother, dressed in a full grandma housecoat as grandmas really once wore, jumped out in front of us and shrieked, "Boo! I gotcha!"

Scared. The. <cuss>. Out. Of. Me.

Lynn, though, just giggled at Grandma's antics and gave her a hug. She introduced me to the manic woman, answered the questions that followed regarding our school day, then went on her merry way arranging dolls and toys for us to play with until it was time for me to head home.

I no longer wanted to stay. I no longer wanted to play. I no longer envied Lynn and her single-child status. Her grandma was nuts. She had to be, as grandmas just don't act like that. At least not any grandmas I knew.

My grandmas were normal. They loved me, I have no doubt, as they they hugged me and smiled each time I saw them. Then they'd settle into conversation with Mom or Dad or other nearby adults, all while I admired them from afar. They didn't converse directly with me. Or read books with me. Or cook with me. Or play games with me. And they most definitely didn't hide from me, after school or otherwise, and come shrieking out of hall closets scaring the bejeezus out of my friends.

They were as normal and good as grandmas come.

Or so I thought.

Now that I'm a grandma, though, what I thought was normal and good when it comes to grandmas has changed significantly. What I, as a grandma, think grandmas should be is nothing like what my normal grandmas were.

Seems I lean a little more toward favoring the unstable sort of grandmothering.

Now that I'm a grandma, I have hidden from Bubby many a time. It's all prearranged and part of giggle-filled games of hide-and-seek, of course (he is not yet even four years old). But hiding from one another is one of our favorite things to do. We also have dedicated discussions that don't include Mom or Dad. We read together. We cook together. We play games together. And we laugh like <cuss> together—something I don't remember ever doing with my own grandmothers.

It's in seeing the grandma gig from the grandma perspective that I finally—after literally decades of wondering why social services or other family members didn't step in to save my friend—realized that Lynn's grandma wasn't unstable at all. She was just a very different kind of grandma than my grandmas.

My grandmas were elders loved and respected from afar, while Lynn's grandma was an up-close and personal kind of grandma. A fun kind of grandma. She obviously was a responsible grandmother who cared daily for her grandchild, but she also did fun things, silly things, things my grandmas would never ever have done.

Lynn's grandma was the kind of grandma I've caught myself being sometimes.

Unstable or not, she's the kind of grandma I want to be all times.

Today's question:

What kind of grandmas were your grandmothers?

Lesson learned

Not long ago, I wrote in this post of Bubby's utter and undisguised disappointment in the gift I sent him for Valentine's Day. He made it perfectly clear then that little boys want toys not something practical in the gifts they open from their grandma.

So when looking for small gifts to mail to Bubby and Baby Mac for Easter, I thought long and hard about my choices, hoping to hit the mark on two counts: 1) they were toys, and 2) they were toys my grandsons would like.

For Bubby the Batman fanatic, I found a set of action figures that featured Batman, Robin, and a motorcycle. For Baby Mac—who truly wants for nothing because Bubby has it all and shares it all—I opted for a stuffed Mickey Mouse. According to Megan, he loves Mickey and Bubby never did, so there were no Mickeys in the house.

The day the package arrived, Megan texted me the following photos of the boys upon first opening their Easter gifts from Gramma. 

I think Gramma did okay this time.

Lesson learned.

Today's question:

What was the highlight of your Easter/Passover holiday?

Grandma was a bully

I'm ashamed to admit that I was a sixth-grade bully. As an individual, I didn't have the personality to be a bully on my own. But in a group, I was just as guilty as the others of hurtful and hateful acts upon fellow students.

Two acts stand out in my memory:

• Once when the teacher had left the room for a bit, my classmates and I managed to hang a shorter classmate from a classroom doorknob by the band of his underwear. The bigger and tougher boys grabbed him and hung him while many of us girls giggled not only at the boys doing the dirty deed, but at the poor kid grasping for all he could to get down from the door knob and away from the embarrassment.

• Even worse was the time a group of us yet-to-develop girls decided to prove a bra-wearing and seemingly better developed girl in the class stuffed her bra. We decided to do the big reveal in front of some boys just to show them that she wasn't as endowed as she seemed and they could stop ogling her and her fakery. Turned out, much to our chagrin and her traumatic embarrassment, that her breasts were indeed real.

How very, very horrible we were.

At the time, these incidents were no big deal to me despite how painful they must have been to the ones we bullied. Since then, as a mother, as a grandmother, it breaks my heart that I participated in such cruelty. I'm sincerely sorry for what I did, but apologies make no difference for the damage and hurt that was done.

Such transgressions have crossed my conscience many a time in the decades since, but they've been especially top of mind since watching the following trailer. Released in select areas in March, Bully is a movie we all should see, consider, share.

As parents and grandparents, we can't shy away from doing our part to prevent bullying and to stop bullying when we see or suspect it—especially if we once were a bully or bullied ourselves. Find more info on the Bully movie Facebook page.

Today's question:

Were you ever a bully or bullied?

Bad grandma

I've always fancied myself a pretty darn good grandma, one who goes out of her way to spread love and joy and special acts of kindness and self-sacrifice all for the sake of her grandsons.

A conversation I had with Megan over the weekend made it clear my delusions of grandmotherly grandeur and goodness may be exactly that—delusions. I'm not all that good. And not all that self-sacrificing. At least not all the time.

I'm scheduled to soon babysit Bubby and Baby Mac for the longest duration I have yet. It's a stint of nearly 10 days on my own—no Megan, no Preston, just me and the boys at their place. Such a stint feeds into my "I'm a good grandma" belief.

Well, Megan and I were discussing this and that over the weekend, and she just so happened to mention that Bubby has started pooping his pants. On a fairly regular basis. This is a kid who's been potty trained for, gosh, well over a year.

Sure, potty-training regression is to be expected when there's been a big change in a little one's life. But Bubby's big change happened nearly a year ago when Baby Mac came along. And several months ago when they moved into a new house. No poopy pants at the time of either of those events.

Now, though, Megan reports that at least once a day Bubby will traipse off to a corner where he thinks he's hidden and do the dirty deed in his big boy undies...then wait quite some time before telling Mommy about it.

Megan's perplexed. And I'm concerned only for myself.

"Yuck! You sure as heck better have that all figured out before I get there," was my instant, unfiltered response. "That's definitely not something I want to deal with."

Yep, I'm a bad grandma. A bad grandma who has no problem whatsoever changing poopy diapers of newborns, infants, even young toddlers who've not yet been potty trained. But big butts of big boys who have fairly big poops is, like I said, definitely not something I want to deal with.

Megan's researched solutions and is working fervently to bring success.

I'm crossing my fingers that success comes sooner rather than later. Only 16 days til I head to the desert. And only 17 days til I get really unhappy if I have to clean up poopy pants on a boy who's nearly four years old.

Today's question:

When did you last change a poopy kid—diapered or otherwise?

She came in through the (bedroom) window

I write picture books. I've yet to have one published. Thanks to a particularly challenging last week or so as it relates to such things, picture books have been on my mind lately. A lot. And not just as they relate to kids.

As a mom, I had a favorite picture book I regularly read, regularly cried to, regularly gave as a baby shower gift to moms-to-be.

As a grandma, I learned the error of my ways—at least as far as giving that favorite picture book to new mothers.

The book of which I speak is Love You Forever by Robert Munsch. It's not a literary classic by any means, but it resonated with me. For those of you who don't know the story—is there really a mom who doesn't?—it's about a mom and her beloved baby boy whom she loves tirelessly throughout the years. Her son begins as an infant, and, as baby boys are wont to do, grows into a man. Through each phase of his life, his Mommy rocks him and tells him...

I'll love you forever,

I'll like you for always,

As long as I'm living

my baby you'll be.

In the story, Mommy grows older, too. And bolder. At one point, once her beloved boy is a man with home of his own, Mommy drives across town in the middle of the night, leans a ladder up to her son's bedroom window, and climbs the darn thing. She goes through the window into the bedroom, where she cuddles and rocks her sound-asleep man-sized boy.

Ladder-climbing Mommy continues to get older...and older and older, and eventually it's the adult boy's turn to rock his Mommy, singing basically the same song.

So sweet. To me, at least.

So creepy, though, to Megan. Megan, my daughter. Megan, mother to my grandsons. Megan, recipient of what I thought was a love-it-forever baby shower gift—a hardback copy of Love You Forever. Not long ago I learned Megan didn't find the gift sweet, that she actually hated it. Always has, she eventually admitted. Mostly because a mom climbing through the bedroom window to express her love to her grown child hits the high point on the creep-o-meter. At least for Megan.

Creepy never crossed my mind when reading and crying over Love You Forever. It just seemed a sweet tale of never-ending loyalty and love between mommy and son.

Now it seems it's yet another way I show my age.

Like so many other things related to parenting, reading and loving Love You Forever is apparently outdated, not how the current generation of parents does things. Nor how they want things. Like picture books. No, kids nowadays—meaning adult kids nowadays, parents themselves—eschew the sweet, the sentimental, opting instead, it seems, for all things practical, pragmatic.

A friend of mine who is a bit younger than I and clearly not of the sweet and sentimental sort (at least not before having kids; motherhood, though, has softened her significantly) received from me for her baby shower a couple books from the Baby Be of Use series: Baby, Mix Me a Drink and Baby Do My Banking. They were given in jest, obviously not to be taken seriously.

That was several years ago. One of the current top books for giving new parents—parents who understandably likely already or will soon want to scream the title to their kid—is Go the F**K to Sleep. Fortunately I don't currently know any moms-to-be, because though I like to give picture books as baby shower gifts, I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around giving the particular popular picture book. I've considered buying a copy for myself, for the novelty of it and the chuckles it will surely elicit. (I'm not that much of an old fogey.) But when it comes to baby showers, Go the F**K to Sleep is surely not this grandma's cuppa tea. (Okay, maybe I am that much of an old fogey.)

Maybe like everything else, though, the picture book pendulum will swing back to the sweet, the sentimental. Just like what happens with parenting rules—such as recommendations for placing a sleeping baby on his back...or stomach...or side...or whatever is the current wisdom—what was once old will eventually be new again.

In the meantime, while I wait for that pendulum to swing back my way, I'll just go read Love You Forever another time or two.

And cry.

And consider the logistics of lugging a ladder to the desert for my next visit to Megan. (Mostly just to creep her out.)

Today's question:

What picture book has creeped out you, your children, or your grandchildren?