Kids, Mine And Theirs

It´s pretty scary raising kids. There are so many things that can go wrong. They get sick; they act up; they get in trouble at school; some have learning issues. Through it all, it´s pretty scary but you get through it. And you´re done.  With a sigh of relief, you pat yourself on the back and know you´ve done your best.

Then come the grandkids and it is even scarier. For one thing, you know all the things that can go wrong. Then there´s the fact that things are not under your control. They have their own parents that make decisions and, for the most part, you have to stand by and support those decisions. Yes, you can offer opinions and suggestions but you can´t push. At least I cannot.  I watch and listen and, when appropriate, I will offer my two cents. But it is all very scary, nonetheless.

That´s what is going on here in my little corner of the world. First it was summer break and the kids were all ready with a day care plan but that didn´t work out because the kids don´t like going to the  woman who was going to watch them. She watches all her grandchildren at the same time so I think our boys just are not used to all of the noise and no technology and other kids, most of them younger than them. So I am called on to go watch them. No problem. Then Spencer got sick and was hospitalized. So I was not only watching the others and trying to be supportive of my daughter, I was also running back and forth to the hospital, their house, and my house! After seven days in the hospital, he was discharged but I had to still be there because he had to be watched and given his medicine on a strict schedule. Now we are looking at major surgery for the little guy (he´s six) and the start of another school year and everything is up in the air.

In the meantime, there is no time for me to see my doctors and get my tests done. The distance between the boys where I need to be and my doctors makes it difficult. And the schedule changes constantly so I am on call every day, all day. I cannot plan “my stuff.¨

And so it´s tough. It´s scary. But that´s my life right now.

Read Full Post »

Shopping Trips

For those of you waiting anxiously for another post about one of my silly grandchildren, this one’s for you!

Of course, it’s about Spencer. Some of you might recall that he’s four years old. He loves to come to see me and he follows me everywhere. He asks a lot of questions, as four year olds do. His older brother, Anderson, is seven and gets tired of having his little brother around all the time so sometimes Spencer needs just a little break from home when his brother is being mean to him or doesn’t want to play with him. Spencer is all action and Anderson is more into playing Minecraft or working on his Legos.

On these mini visits, Spencer comes for just a little while then suddenly wants to go home. That’s usually fine because they live so close to me and I can take him home. Sometimes, it’s not so fine because it’s one thirty in the morning. Yeah, he’s one of those that won’t go to sleep until he’s good and ready. He has a routine on these visits. He comes to shop but we don’t know until he gets here. I think we need to teach him to tell us when he just wants to come shop.

Shopping at Nana’s house goes something like what he did last night: It takes him half an hour to get read to come then we drive over (about two minutes). He walks in the house and the clue that it’s a shopping trip is that he doesn’t immediately take off his shoes and jacket. So he walked in the house, looked around, sat in front of the heater. My heater went out last month and I don’t have the thousands of dollars to replace it so I bought room heaters and the one in the living room is one of those that looks like a fireplace. So Spencer sat in front of it for about two minutes then got up and said, “Nana, I think I’m going to need a little bag.” Bingo! It’s a shopping trip. I had a little shopping bag ready for him because I have learned that the bigger the bag, the more he takes home. He walked around the house (I have to follow so I know what he’s taking) and grabbed candy for him and for his brother and then went to the fridge and asked me to give him the pink milk and the brown milk (Nestle’s strawberry and chocolate individual containers). He went to my craft table and grabbed a color pencil that writes in five or six different marbled colors, a pencil sharpener, and a notepad.

Then he said, “I think I ready to go my house, Nana.” So off we went.  We got in the house and he gets his brother to come see what he got at Nana’s and he dumped the back in the middle of the floor!

Of course, a lot of what he takes with him ends up back here, thankfully. I’ve learned not to argue with him. He has taken things like my scented wax melts, my headphones, my mini voice recorder, and on and on. My daughter usually grabs the stuff when he’s not looking and puts it in another bag and hands it to me the next time I go.

These visits we call “shopping trips.”

Read Full Post »

Smile 1 and Smile 2

This week, Spencer who is four and pretty much wants to be exactly like his big brother, came home from pre-school and I asked him for a hug. He shook his head. I asked please and he smiled and said  “no hug.” So I pretended to cry and said I was sad because I needed a hug and no one would give me one. He put down everything on his lap and in his hands, got off the couch and came to be and put his arms around my neck. He hugged me for a long, long time and he had the sweetest smile. That one made me smile enough for the whole week.

However, on Tuesday night, Anderson spent the night. When he sleeps over, he wants to sleep in my bed even though there is a twin bed in the spare room. So he was watching TV and I was reading when he asked me if he could have hot chocolate. As I struggled to get off the bed I said, “Nana’s getting old, Anderson.” To which he said, “Yeah that means you’re going to die soon because when people get old, they die.” I asked him what he would do when I die because I wouldn’t be here anymore and he couldn’t see me. He stopped and looked at me and his eyes got all teary and then he smiled and said, “I know! I’m going to make a wish that you will never ever die!”

Pretty neat smiles if you ask me!

Read Full Post »

Wordless Wednesday

Read Full Post »

Two Down…

… One to go.

It’s after 10 at night. I’ve been here with the kids since before  two this afternoon. The baby has  fallen asleep in my arms three times but this last time she really fought it then I put her down and she fussed for about five minutes. She’s out now. Spencer has been led than cooperative but he’s down now. Anderson is the model child, at least today,  and is just about to nod off.

Me? Exhausted is too mild a word. Of  course  when their dad comes   home in another couple of hours, it will be after midnight and I haven’t worked on my nanowrimo project. I have to go finish getting the spare room ready for Maya to visit tomorrow and do laundry and load the dishwasher. By then I’ll be on my second wind and won’t be able to sleep.  In the morning I have errands and then watching the three again for most of the day.  Yup. Fat chance I’ll get any writing done. I have a suspicion I’ll have to watch them again on  Sunday. Fun.

Actually, it is fun but not so much when I’m not feeling my best and when I have stuff I want to do. And I would really like to be able to sleep in just once this session. Or read. Or relax with a glass of wine. I don’t drink when I’m the only adult responsible for the kids.

Anyway, with luck Saturday will be a shorter babysitting day. I’ll let you know.

Read Full Post »

This Is Where…

…my time goes:

Just as I think I am going to start something or take a short nap, it never fails, I get a text from my daughter to go rock the baby to sleep or hold her so she can get word done. And off I go because I never learned to pronounce the most difficult word in many languages — “no.”  Sometimes I don’t eat because I am over there. Like tonight. She asked me over just after five. I was supposed to eat between six and seven. (Because my insulin lasts about four and a half hours and I have to eat shortly after that so I can take the insulin again before my blood sugar sky rockets.) I thought I would just need to rock her to sleep and then come home. When I got there, she told me that Anderson tried to do a somersault and landed on the pack ‘n play with all his weight and broke it. They use the pack ‘n play as the baby’s bed because a crib doesn’t fit in her bedroom. So she was asking in all of her free groups on Facebook if anyone had an extra one she could have or even borrow. And that also meant that when Maya fell asleep in my arms, she had to stay in my arms because her bed was broken.

She was lucky enough to find one to keep in one of the groups so off she went to pick it up and to the grocery store to get the rent money order because she’s going to be out of town until late Sunday and she can’t trust her husband to get the money order and follow through with turning it in. And all that while I was sitting on the couch with a sleeping baby in my arms.

The baby woke up and cried and fussed because she’s working on cutting another tooth and I think she missed her mama, too. When they got back, Spencer didn’t want me to leave. He does this thing where he wraps his arms around my legs so I won’t leave and looks up at me and says “pease Nana pease, don’t go, pease.” How can I say no to that? By then it was nine and I still had not eaten or taken my insulin so I told Spencer I could stay a little longer if his mommy had food for me because I was three hours late eating and taking my medicine. Spencer got a chair and pulled it to the freezer to look for food for me! So I stayed just about another hour. I ate there then played with Spencer (no school on Fridays at Head Start so he got to stay up late) for a little bit then came home.

And I am exhausted. I am supposed to do some writing so I don’t fall behind on my NaNoWriMo project (and I will most likely fall behind this weekend because I am helping Chris out with kids while Tina is out of town) and I was supposed to write this blog post. I got that done but I don’t think I will have the energy to do any writing on my NaNoWriMo project. Maybe if I go to sleep now I will wake up early tomorrow?

Anyway, if Maya was such a cutie pie, awake or asleep, it wouldn’t be so difficult to say that unpronouncable word! Darn, just my luck to have the cutest little granddaughter!

 

 

Read Full Post »

When They Ask For A Time Out

Spencer and Anderson have been with since their mommy went to the hospital on Tuesday. They’ve never stayed with me that long in one shot. It’s now Monday. Almost a whole week. The big one, Anderson, is the most perfect little boy. He’s six. He can be here for days and no one would know it. He takes care of himself and if he sees I’m not busy, he comes to see if we can I can sit with him to do something…read, watch TV, play a game…all good stuff.

However, Spencer is in constant motion. He never stops unless he’s asleep. He’s gotten into the habit of say “No. I said no!” to me when I ask him to do something or stop doing something. Then he laughs and runs away. When I catch him there is lots of laughing and kicking on his part and a lot of frustration on my part. Sometimes tears because his kicks connect. When we went to visit at the hospital on Friday night, his dad told me to put him in time out in his room. So I figured that was a good idea only we’re at my house, not his. When he was acting up, I told him that if he didn’t behave he was going to have a time out. He looked around and said “time out where?” I took him to the guest bedroom which I had actually cleaned out and made up with fresh linens and soft blankets. I guess he liked it. So a couple of hours later,  when he wouldn’t stop jumping on my bed where he was supposed to be sleeping, I said “Stop or you get a time out.” He got that light bulb look in his eyes and got right off of the bed, grabbed my hand and said, “Come on, ollow me. Ollow me.” He walked be to the spare bedroom,  and got into the bed and had me cover him. As I walked out of the room, he was whispering, “nice fresh bed; nice fresh bed.” And he stayed. Within five minutes he was zonked out.

So now I am wondering if on this last day that they will be with me, the time out will still work. I’m hoping to have a good day. One where I don’t have to stick my whole are in the toilet bowl to pull out all of the Play Doh; one where I don’t walk in the kitchen to find him “cooking” a concoction of cookies, chocolate syrup, Sweet N Low, an entire salt shaker of salt, a cork from a wine bottle that I wish I still had to settle my nerves after dealing with him; a day when I don’t go to put on my shoes to find that he has filled them with my pricey body lotion which was a gift that I never use because I want to save it; a day when he has not gone through my jewelry box and tangled all of my necklaces; a day when he has not scattered Anderson’s flashcards all over; a day when I don’t have to scold or raise my voice. A fun day. A happy day.

And I know that as soon as they have been gone a few hours, I will be missing them. However, this time I think it will take me quite some time to recuperate and even longer to put the house back how it’s supposed to be.

Read Full Post »

Hopes And Dreams

If we were having coffee, we would be indoors. It’s raining here in Seattle. It’s not cold, just wet. You would have to help yourself to a drink before settling in as I have a baby in my arms! I drove up here on Tuesday morning and was handed a baby as soon as I got in the door. The rest of the time has been filled with holding him, feeding him, and lots of burping! Mati is four weeks old. He’s quite alert for four weeks. I think I’m spoiling him. He’s been attached to me almost all day, every day. I got to be his first babysitter, too. His mommy and daddy had tickets to two soccer games this week so they got a couple of nights out and I got this precious little boy to myself.

This past week has been filled with shock and sadness in the world. Being here with this tiny, innocent little boy has helped me both empathize with that grief and sadness and also get through it without totally falling apart.

As Mati sleeps in my arms, I’m reminded of holding his daddy in my arms when he was this age. I’m reminded of how much simpler the world was; how much less hate, fear, and danger we faced. I am also filled with hope and dreams that Mati’s world will be a better place; that he won’t have to know the hate and intolerance; that he will be in less danger when he grows; that he will live in a world that embraces all mankind.

I’ll be driving home to Portland tomorrow. I’m already missing this little one and wondering when I’ll be back to see him. I’m lucky that he’s only a three hour drive away from me. Hopefully that will translate into frequent visits.

 #WeekendCoffeeShare is a weekly blog linkup hosted by Diana at Part Time Monster Blog. Come join us!

Read Full Post »

Spencer

He’s two. He’s a little character. Usually, when we go out to eat, he’s either really good as long as he is eating then he starts to get up and wander around the restaurant. Then again, he could be horrible from the time we walk into the restaurant. Often, one of the adults has to leave with him to walk him around until food arrives or until the others are finished eating.

This morning, I was up really early (3:45) and at 7, my daughter texted to say the boys were both awake and she was going to see if she could get the little one back to sleep as 7 is too early for him to be up. Well, at 7:15 she texted again to ask if I wanted to take him to eat because he wasn’t going back to sleep. I agreed. I’ve never taken just him to eat at a sit down restaurant and I’ve been wanting to give it a try so this morning was my chance. I showed up and he was all ready and eager to leave. We went right down the road a mile to the Carver Cafe, where he had never been before. They had just opened and we were the only ones in the place. He was very quiet, looking all around. I took out color pencils and paper and he drew until the food arrived. He ate very well then got up and stood staring at the waitress. By then there were three other people there. He was fascinated by the others but it was clear it was time to go because he looked ready to really wander around. So the experiment was a success.

On the way back, he was really cute. He wanted to hold the box with his leftovers. When we got home he wouldn’t let go of the box except to get his carseat straps off. He was happy to be home and showed his mom his food.

I have a feeling there will be a lot more breakfasts out with him as long as he can behave as he did this morning.

Read Full Post »

The Newest Photo Bug

I will have to write a longer post regarding all the photo enthusiasts in my family and how they came to be but for a very quick post, as I am packing for tomorrow’s trip, I thought I would share this short one with you.

Yesterday, I gave Anderson (5 years old) my Canon point and shoot that has been sitting for over two years with no use as now I use either my phone or my DSLR.  I took him for a walk and showed him how to turn it on and the shutter button and let him take pictures as he wanted to.  He was soooo excited!  He ran from one plant to the next and one flower to the next taking pictures.  He snapped a picture of every car that went by us.  He took pictures of his feet and mine.  He had a ball!  Next he will learn the video part of the camera and I predict he will really have fun with that.

Anderson taking a close up of some tiny flowers.

Read Full Post »