Not a Housekeeper

“Granma,” Adella says, “I want to play the Pokémon game. “

I am stuck in that nebulous middle period of my granny nanny day, hours  four and five out of seven. I am drained of the energy of the first few hours. Yet that magical seventh hour—the anticipation hour when I mark the time until their father’s arrival in in five-minute increments—seems an eternity away. The family room is a disaster. The kitchen cluttered. And I have not even ventured upstairs where Adella played while I fed Marshall his bottle. Chaos is inevitable. As Marshall and I rocked, she showed me the paper she had found to color on from my husband’s office, two pages of our 2015 tax statement.

“Adella, I’m sorry,” I reply.  “But we cannot play the Pokémon game. We have to clean up. The family room is a mess. There’s really no room anywhere to play.”  Besides, I think, only Uncle Daniel knows the rules they have invented to match the board game and only he has the patience to clean up its many, many pieces.

“Here’s a space, Granma,“ Adella announces with a grand gesture, worthy of a Price is Right model, showcasing the lone bare spot on the family room floor. “We can play here.”

I laugh.  She reminds me of her mother, persistent, ever solving problems, and always attempting to reason with me.

I do not relent. Finally she does and asks me to move an armchair in the corner out from the wall instead. She hides behind it and peacefully plays with the ragtag remnants of her mother’s Littlest Pet Shop animals.

Marshall is content cruising the coffee table. I start vacuuming the rug under my kitchen table.

“What are you doing Granma?” Adella asks. She knows very well what I am doing. I think she is really asking why I am doing it. Is it really so surprising to her that I am vacuuming? Her question reminds me of the time her father asked who I was expecting when he caught me washing the kitchen floor.

“I am vacuuming, Silly,” I say, but I really am just determined to reclaim a small island of clean from the crumbs and the crayons.

Satisfied, Adella announces, “I need a basket.” She then proceeds to dump the entire red toy basket full of toys on the lone clean space in the family room.

I frown. She giggles. I abandon the vacuum.

“When you make a mess, it makes grandma very, very sad.” I say, and then with great drama I add, ”I am so sad.”

She receives my message, but not my intent. Adella begins singing, “Be happy, Granma. Be happy. This is my happy song. Be happy, Granma.”

I crack a smile.  I am reluctant to admit it, but her happy song worked.  And yet I am not willing to let her entirely win her way.

“We need to put the toys back in the basket,” I say. I start putting them back in.

“No,” she protests.

“Honey, this is where the toys belong. Grandma wants them in the basket.”

“But I need a basket for my things,” she pleads. I do not doubt her need. Of late she has been appropriating different baskets throughout the house to carry her current menagerie of treasured things. Two weeks ago, it was the catchall basket on the stairs. Last week, it was a basket of books she emptied. But my need for a clean spot trumps her need for a basket.

“Adella,” I say loudly and firmly.

“No, no, no,” she wails, crumpling on the floor. I have crossed the line. At her age, her greatest need is the approval of her caregiver. And I have just withdrawn it. Her world, as she knows it, has ended.

I get down on the floor and cradle her in my arms. “Grandma loves you. I’m sorry.” As we cuddle, Marshall crawls over, scales me, and joins our hug for a moment. Then he moves on to the diaper basket and begins pulling out diapers. Does he know he is furthering Adella's agenda by emptying yet another basket, I wonder.

“Look Granma! See those stickers,” Adella says as she points to a black cabinet under which the diaper basket is stored. All is forgiven, she has moved on.

I look. I am very well aware of the stickers, which are actually Christmas stamps. A few weeks ago, she decorated the glass doors of the cabinet with the “stickers," $4.90  worth. The cabinet is my one possession destined to continue to rise in value—they are Forever Stamps.

“Look Granma,” she says. “I added a flag one, too.” I had not yet noticed that the value of the cabinet had been pushed up over $5.  “There are more flag stickers up there on top, Granma. I can put some more stickers on,” she says excitedly as she begins looking for the roll of flag stamps in my letter box.

“No, no, no,” I say, but my tone is softer, gentler. We are much closer to the magical hour. “Grandma needs the stamps so that she can send some letters.”

Marshall has now emptied the diaper basket. Mainly size 3s with a few 4s and 5s. So much for my careful sorting and stacking of the diapers.

I look at the clock.  And then I surrender to the chaos. I have just entered the magical final hour. Only 60 minutes until pick up.

I stack the diapers on the kitchen table. Curiously, I note, the animals of Littlest Pet Shop have taken up residence in the diaper basket. I look at the sea of books and toys littering the family room. But I hear two happy children. Marshall is gurgling. Adella is singing another song.

And I remind myself of my favorite motherhood mantra. When I was young (so very long ago), when I was a mother of young children (children who now have children of their own), I repeated my mantra ad nauseum to my husband whenever he surveyed a sea of books and toys: I am a childcare provider, not a housekeeper.