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?

Once upon an unstable grandma

/
Gramma and boys at park.jpg

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?

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?

Easter in an empty nest: 9 no longers

/

1. No longer do I set out Easter decorations. At least not this year. Maybe next year. Or maybe at least a centerpiece for Easter dinner this year. Maybe.

2. No longer do I buy Easter outfits.

3. No longer do I referee arguments during egg coloring over who got the purple first, who dipped their "dirty" blue spoon into the yellow, and who is copying whom on the designs drawn with crayons.

4. No longer do I have three girls in the pew next to me covering their ears so they don't jump at the strepitus at the end of the Good Friday Tenebrae service.

5. No longer do I remind my daughters at bedtime on Easter eve to make "nests" with their baby afghans for their baskets so the Easter Bunny can easily find them for filling in the night.

6. No longer do I nibble on carrots left for the Easter Bunny.

7. No longer do I play Easter Bunny at all.

8. No longer am I awakened Easter morning by little ones—or big ones—tiptoeing down the stairs to see what the Easter Bunny left in their baskets.

9. No longer do I have to say again and again and again to "Put the candy away NOW and go get ready for church."

I miss all that.

Well, maybe not No. 9.

Because I still say that.

Only now I say it to Jim.

Again and again and again.

(Just for old time's sake.)

Today's question:

How has Easter changed for you in the last few years?

Cookies = Christmas

/

One major mile-marker on my road to Christmas has been passed: I hosted my family's annual Cookie Swap on Sunday.

The lineup of goodies swapped was impressive:

And the time with family was festive (with a large chunk of it dedicated to football, as expected):

My mom and sisters and I have been swapping holiday cookies for about a quarter of a century now, and Sunday's gathering had four generations of the family in attendance.

Cookie Swap prep time and baking can be quite a chore, but it's one well worth it as I hope the tradition will continue for many more years to come, for many more generations to enjoy.

Today's question:

If you had to eliminate all sweets and treats from your holiday diet except for one, which one seasonal goodie would you keep on enjoying?

No trophies for this grandma

/

Megan after Mad Mud Run 2011I've never been an athlete, never been competitive when it comes to sports and physical exertion. The only time I came even close to thinking I could come out on top in a sporting event was in first grade. It was field day and I was so enthralled with Frankie, the cutest of cute boys in my class, that I felt I could do anything, beat anyone in any competition I was signed up for—which was only the three-legged race and the tug-of-war every kid in the class was signed up for but, hey, I was ready.

Elementary school field days are a magical day near the end of the school year when the sun is warm, the excitability high, and the festive agenda includes running, racing, jumping and more. One of the highlights of field days back in my day (and back in the cold of Minnesota) was the rare opportunity to eat outside on blankets carefully placed across the school lawn instead of crammed onto cafeteria tables with built-in benches inside the dank, stale lunchroom. The picnic-style lunch was a favorite of students one and all.

My main event—the three-legged race—was scheduled for late afternoon, so I joyfully ate my lunch, sneaking peeks at Frankie across the lawn every chance I could, then looking away the second his head turned my way. We'd not yet spoken to one another; he likely didn't even know my name. But I was determined to change all that on our glorious day on the field.

My opportunity to do exactly that came just after lunch. A creek ran through the grounds just behind the school, and when we weren't on the roster for field events, many of us played along its banks awaiting our competition. Frankie was in the group of boys daring one another to jump across the water, I was in the group of girls fawning over their agility.

My eyes were in all-out adoration mode, focused on Frankie...until I saw in my peripheral vision a frog. A hopping amphibian of magical proportions that I was sure would garner me attention from Frankie, if only I could capture the creature and present it to him.

As the boys jumped and the girls watched, I stealthily approached the frog no one else seemed to have seen. The frog hopped ahead a bit. Then it hopped farther...and faster...with each step I took toward it. But I, too, moved faster and faster, determined to nab the prize and present it to my potential beau. Sensing my plan, the frog took one fantastic leap, right over the muddy bank and downward into the stream. Thanks to the momentum built in my pursuit, I, too, went over the muddy bank—then tripped and landed face first in the mud and tumbled on into the stream.

By then my stream-mates had gathered at the top of the bank, giggling as the frog hopped away. I gave up on the frog and, doing my best to hold back the tears, began my ascent up the muddy bank, slipping, sliding, stumbling as I tried to grab hold of anything that might help me reach the top. I finally made it—with no help from any of the other kids. Not from my girl friends, not from the boys, and especially not from Frankie.

I was a mess, a stinky, muddy mess. My mom was called, I was brought home to change, and I arrived back at the field just in time to join the three-legged race, which I reluctantly ran only for the sake of my assigned partner.

I can't remember whether we won or lost the race that day, but I do remember the entire experience revealed Frankie as a creep unwilling to help a lass in need. My crush was over, gone, abated for ever more.

My Frankie-and-the-frog incident had little to do with my athletic ability, but I don't recall ever being as excited about my subsequent field days and athletic attempts as I was that first fateful one. I grudgingly participated in P.E. classes throughout my school career, had a brief stint as a junior-high cheerleader, and joined a summer softball team only once as an adult—and quit soon after the team captain told me in not-so-polite terms that I really shouldn't be allowed on the field after flubbing the art of catching, throwing, batting so horrendously during practices.

There's no question about it: I'm no athlete. Jim is definitely more athletic than I, having been on wrestling, baseball, and football teams in high school, but he was never considered, by ability or association, a full-fledged jock.

Which is why it's so surprising our daughters were...and are. We could never afford for the girls to be on park & rec or club teams as youngsters, but from middle school on, all three were firmly entrenched in school sports. They continually impressed me with their participation in swimming, cross country, track, cheerleading, volleyball, soccer. Brianna and Andrea both received high-school letters and letter jackets for being three-sport athletes; Megan received the same for being in two sports plus choir.

Now that my daughters are adults, they continue to impress me with their athletic pursuits. Primarily as runners...running long distances.

Turkey Trot 2010

My daughters happily, willingly participate in 5Ks, 10Ks, half marathons and more. This weekend, in fact, both Megan and Andrea are running some sort of Jingle Bell race, each in their respective cities.

The athletic (although not yet all that competitive) spirit continues with Bubby. At three years old, he's an avid swimmer, loves to hike and bike, and just last week he finished up his soccer season. For his effort on the team, Bubby garnered his very first sports trophy ever.

It surely won't be his last, especially if his mommy and aunts (and daddy, too) have anything to do with it. And if he's fleet-footed enough to dodge any non-athletic influence his grandma may have on him.

Today's question:

To whom would you award the Most Athletic trophy in your family?