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.

I Sleep in My Bed

“I sleep in my bed at my house,” Adella pronounces.  It is her opening statement of the day as she awakes in Granma’s bed. It is the second time in a week she has begun the day with that announcement, so I assume it is important for her. Perhaps it is her way of wrapping her three-year-old mind around the fact that once again she is greeting the morn in Granma’s bed, not her own nor her parents’.

But Adella does not always sleep in her bed at her house. I know for a fact that last night she slept most of the night in her parents’ bed. When she dropped her babies off, her mother had proudly celebrated the fact that nine-month-old Marshall had once again slept through the night. But before I could offer my congratulations, Chrissy preempted me by noting that victory did not translate into more sleep. Adella had crept into her parents’ bed in the middle of the night and had spent the rest of the night migrating among its four corners.

“But sometimes you sleep in your mommy’s bed,” I respond.

“No, I sleep in my bed.”

Then she added, “Marshall sleeps in his bed.” (This is true. Mom and Dad have grown much wiser with child number 2.) “Daddy and Mommy sleep in their bed.” And then she launches into the hospital story about when her mother went to the hospital to “pick up” Marshall.

Then she is up, off and running, with Marshall crawling up the rear. I am left to ponder Adella’s world as I watch them embrace the day. A psychologist would tell me that Adella is beginning to internalize her family values. Her mother values that Adella sleep in her own bed. Her father values that she sleep in her own bed. She begins each night in her bed. And she knows her parents want her to sleep all night in her own bed.

Adella inhabits a happy-go-lucky, three-year-old world that blurs the lines between the real and imaginary. She plays with Enga, her blue-haired, imaginary friend, on the landing of my stairs. And she does have her own “adventures,” in the mountains no less, when she shuts Marshall and me out of my bedroom. (Oh how she will love The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.) And in that world, she does sleep in her bed. Every night.

I do not yet comprehend her world and probably never will. It evaporates if I seek to enter it. Yet for her this world is well defined. One day I ask her where Enga lives. I am hoping for a description of a turreted forest castle or a snowy mountain chalet or a cozy seaside cottage. Adella, however, is a little put out by my asking such an obvious question. She answers matter-of-factly, “With her family.”

Her tone tells me I should be satisfied.  And I suppose I am. Satisfied Adella understands what is most important: the world of her family.

"I Don't Have a Tail"

“I don’t have a tail,” Adella announces as she awakens in my bed, going from 0 to 60 in under 6 seconds. Most mornings she is up before 6, so Mom can drop her off at Granma’s house well before 7. Often, but not always, she spends the first hour or so asleep in my bed. And lately, the soporific effect of her gold blanket, an unwieldy tattered tied quilt, and her thumb extend her morning slumber an extra hour or two.

Waking is my favorite time of day with a young child (provided he or she or I am not sick). This is my reward as granny nanny—to watch once more as the world begins anew for this Child of Joy. Only hours after valiantly and unsuccessfully attempting to fight off sleep, fearful of missing something, anything, she now rushes to embrace her wakefulness.

I can only assume that to Adella her grand opening statement of the day is not a conversational non sequitur to my “Good morning.” It is as if she is continuing a conversation from the night before. 

Hoping for a little more context I ask, “Who does have a tail?”

“Daniel Tiger.”

Oh yes, it is beginning to make a little more sense. Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood is one of her favorite series. Only later do I learn that she has watched an episode in which Daniel discovers he is the only character with a tail.

I am determined to tease out more. “What about Curious George? Does he have a tail?”

“No,” she giggles, as if I should know the answer to this question. “He doesn’t have a tail. He has a belly. Like me.” And that is the end of our conversation. We hear Marshall stirring in the other room. Adella is up and on to the business of the day, I to catch a glimpse of Marshall’s happy wake up face and gurgling. I know enough to enjoy these brief moments before the practicality of life with two young children takes over, before Adella, the monkey, attempts to consume all my bananas and Marshall attempts to crawl everywhere and eat every crayon in sight.

I remember Adella’s waking statement last week, “Granma I need a pocket for my cell phone.” I really must create a list of all these waking thoughts, I conclude. Think what insight they will give me into a preschooler’s mind.

Of course, I know how long my attention span is. I also know how easy it is to pursue long-term projects with children in the house, even if they are only here twice a week. (Three times if you count weekly family Sunday dinners.) Just remembering these two statements might be as good as it gets.

"Are You Crazy?": From the Mouth of My Babe

 My baby, Chrissy turns thirty today. In honor of her birthday, I post a piece I wrote about her when I was thirty and when she was just as impish as her daughter Adella. Hard to believe it has been three decades.

"Mommy," my two-and-a-half-year-old Chrissy asks in her inquisitive voice.

"Yes, honey," I reply, my cheeriness reflecting a rare eight hours of sleep the night before. This of all mornings of motherhood past and future, I am determined to be a perfect mother. I give her my full attention.

"Mommy," comes her lilting voice again. "Are you crazy?"

I choke over my cereal, then direct a few dagger looks towards my husband. His lips scrunch tightly to contain his laughter. Then he innocently hunches his shoulders as if to say, "Don't ask me where she gets such absurd ideas."

I look back at her, slurping her Raisin Bran, the only cereal she will eat, from her special breakfast bowl, the only bowl from which she will eat. Why has she interrupted her morning breakfast ritual with such a question, I wonder. And why on the day I have determined to be perfect. Defensive, I am tempted to question, "Just why do you ask?" Instead, I sweetly reply, "Are you being silly?"

"Yes," she giggles and dives her spoon back into her bowl.

She does not even understand what crazy is, I assure myself. It has no more meaning for her than the word yesterday, which signifies all past time from the era of Danny's Dinosaur until seven-thirty last night when I unjustly sent her to bed. Chrissy is a child who, after a glance at her watch, declares it is twenty-nine o'clock. A child who stuffs her size nine right foot into a size four left sneaker just to see if it fits. Chrissy does not understand time and space. How could she ever perceive a fracture in my psyche? I will yet have my perfect morning.

Chrissy's fingers probe among the milky bran flakes and she delicately plucks out a raising between her thumb and forefinger. Holding it high above her head, she carefully examines each wrinkle and then zooms it to her gaping mouth. Then she grins and asks again, "Mommy, are you crazy?"

"No, silly," I answer, hoping my jocular tone does not betray my sudden lack of confidence.

Of course, Tim, my husband's colleague, might agree with Chrissy. I certainly looked the part the other afternoon when he stopped by to deliver a crucial document. Chrissy had just finished doing my hair. With seven "ponies" topped with bright yellow, blue, red, and purple kiddie barrettes, I answered the door. As he eyed these ponytails flopping around my face, he very slowly and very simply explained that I must be very careful and not lose the document before my husband returned home.

More than likely my neighbors must think I act crazy. I am a thirty-year-old woman who sits in the neighborhood sand pool, building castles and cooking sand soup. I slide down slides, swing in swings, and scale spaceships. And on warm summer days with Chrissy's help, I embark on long dandelion safaris. On hands and knees we stalk the long park grass in search of dandelions ripe for blowing.

When I am driving and stop at intersections, I get strange looks from the passengers in neighboring cars. Is it that I am off-key when I belt out our "Green and Red Light"song? Or do I sound crazy? At crosswalks fellow pedestrians look the other way while we wait for the light enthusiastically singling "Stop, Look, and Listen." And I must admit we sing our favorites, "Ba, Ba, Black Sheep," and "Old MacDonald," wherever whim strikes--grocery stores, playgrounds, airports, or museums. Normal adults have passed that stage, I suppose.

I know for a fact that my mother thinks I am crazy for indulging my daughter. One car trip rife with Chrissy's rituals convinced her. Waiting while Chrissy struggled to open the car door and then played tug-of-war with the backseat seatbelts, trying to strap in Big Bear, Little Bear, Catty and her kitten Koko, all the while repeating with as much energy as the little engine, "I think I can, I think I can" was more than Mom could take. "This is enough to drive a saint with the patience of Mother Theresa to madness," she mumbled under her breath.

My husband kindly does not think I am crazy. Or so he says. He has spent too many hours with Chrissy. But in the back of his mind, perhaps he ponders the same question as Chrissy. Sane people live orderly lives in orderly homes and hold coherent conversations. Maybe he has taken my shrieks that welcome him home from a hard day's work too seriously. Perhaps both he and Chrissy have heard me complain that I am going crazy once too often.

But I do not really think I am going crazy. That is, until I remember the milk. Just last week I lost a gallon of milk somewhere in my house. I used to be a meticulous woman with a photographic memory. I could recall names and conversations from years ago, construct grocery lists from recipes I had not cooked in years, and give an instantaneous report on each item in our well-stocked pantry. But I could not find that milk. I searched the cupboards, the bedrooms, the bathroom, the closets. No one in her right mind loses an entire gallon of milk. Furthermore, no sane woman looks behind shower curtains and under beds for a lost gallon of milk.

"Mommy, are you crazy?" Chrissy asks a third time. Quests are a game for her. But I think she also senses her question unnerves me. Is this child sent to me as Lear's fool, I wonder. Maybe, just maybe, I am crazy.

Tired of the question, I ask, "Chrissy, what do you think?"

"Yes," she giggles.

And I guess I am. Part of motherhood is being crazy, I conclude, beginning my less than perfect day.

Not “How does she ever do it?” But “How did I ever do it?”

It was one of those SuperMom, or rather Super Granny Nanny mornings. The stars aligned and for a short while both Adella and Marshall were asleep. I had managed not only to tie together two bundles of cardboard and get them to the curb before the sanitation crew arrived, but also to rewash that lingering load of laundry and get it into the dryer. The dishwasher was humming, the kitchen counters and sink were clean and as Adella continued sleeping, Marshall “helped” me make the bed, that is to say, he allowed me to make the bed. I was just about to start vacuuming when Adella, in her pink elephant sleeper, announced herself.

She rubbed her hands up and down her legs. “Grandma, I need pockets for my cell phone.” I laughed. Only after I dressed her in her jeans with pockets did I discover she was serious. She slipped Uncle Daniel’s retired cell phone into the front pocket of her jeans.

After a few phone calls with Justine, who had a dead battery, another load or two of laundry, and some play time downstairs where Adella determined that she wanted to read the bright yellow and black Cliff Notes for Huckleberry Finn—I gave her an even more abbreviated version of the plot, boy and man on a boat raft in a river, to which she replies "That is an adventure"—it was time for lunch.

The day was going a little too well. But I tempted fate. I chose a mixed vegetable puree and a cute plastic baby spoon  that looks more like a miniature shovel than a spoon that has taken up residence in my silverware drawer. Marshall ate with relish and without too much mess, until in my haste I flipped back the spoon a little too quickly. Orange muck on my white t-shirt. And then it happened again. Me, not Marshall, making the mess, which now reached my “Mom sweatshirt.”  I gave Marshall an ample supply of Cheerios and retreated to the sink.

“Don’t worry,” I reassured myself. “You just need a cup of milk to give yourself some energy until you have time to eat your own lunch.” I poured a cup of milk.

“I need a cup of milk, too,” Adella announced.

I pulled out a cup. “Not that cup. My sippy cup,” she said.

I reached over her to get the sippy cup on the top shelf of the cupboard, and then it happened. I knocked over the entire cup of milk, all over the floor, all over Adella.

“My stool,” she cried. “My stool is dirty.”

“It’s o.k., we can clean it up,” I said and she promptly got on the floor with the paper towels and energetically tried to wipe it all up.

There was no use crying over spilt milk. But I did grumble a bit. In that brief moment, the order of the day had erupted into chaos. A chaos that then seemed to reign until their father came to pick them up.

After I shut the door on my departing cherubs and before I jumped into the shower to rush to get ready for work, I sat down for a minute. Just one. 

I contemplated the day. I am always one cupful away from disaster.  Just one.   

I am only granny nanny two days a week. Just two. As I contemplate the chaos of two days a week, I am mystified. The question is not “How does my daughter do it?” But “How did I ever do it?”  

  

Thankful somehow all three children made it to adulthood.

Teddy Bear Deja Vu. Is it Nature or Nurture?

Until she entered the Barbie phase, my daughter Chrissy was strictly a teddy bear person. No dolls for her. Big Bear and Little Bear were it. And they lived the good life. Chrissy stole her brother Nathan's diapers for them, she nursed them, and, much to my chagrin, she insisted on carefully seat belting each bear into his seat every time we got in the car. Big Bear even had a pack of crayons that was his pancreas that stopped working when he came down with diabetes like her.

This week Adella became enamored of two bears at my house. Is her discovery Nature--a genetic link to Chrissy? Or Nurture--toys found at loving Granma's house? Or sheer cousin rivalry--Jim discovered the bears downstairs on Sunday--which leads us to yet another layer of Nature vs. Nurture: was Jim attracted to the bear that belonged to his father as a child or does he just like bears?

Regardless, the interaction at breakfast yesterday reminded me of littlemommy, what Adella calls the young Chrissy. (A term, I suppose, Adella has invented in order to wrap her head around the fact that her mother was once a child--a fact she is often reminded of because Granma keeps finding Chrissy's childhood toys as she rummages through her basement and announcing to Adella these treasures were once her mother's toys.)

"It's time for breakfast," she announced and put each bear in his (or her? or its?--I am not sure of their respective genders) seat at the kitchen table.

"I want the purple cereal." Raisin Bran--a cereal Chrissy liked at age 3. I poured Adella a bowl, knowing enough not to top the cereal with milk. Adella likes it dry, unlike her mother.

"Granma," she said with a distinctive didn't-you-forget-something tone. "The bears need bowls." 

"Oh, of course," I reply, finding the two smallest bowls and pour the smallest possible amount of Raisin Bran in that I estimate will satisfy her demands. 

"And spoons." She fished around the silverware drawer until she found two spoons that satisfied her.

"Of course," I replied in a what-was-I-thinking voice.

She sat down, satisfied. I became absorbed with feeding Marshall who was happily smashing banana pieces between his fingers in the high chair. And life went on.

Later as I cleaned up the bear's cereal, I noted they had hardly touched their breakfasts. All the bran flakes were still there, but the raisins were conspicuously absent. 

"Hmm," I thought, "just like Chrissy." And I fondly remember the days when she used to pick out the raisins from Raisin Bran. The days when she still ate raisins.

My Homage to Seatwarmers

Gotta love those butt warmers in my car. It is really, really cold in NJ thanks to the arctic cold front. Nathan and Justine escaped back to San Francisco just in time. (So sad.) Those warmers made it a little easier for me to have the energy to get Adella to the car and swim class this morning even though we were running late. (It took a bit to get her to wake up for class.)

But it was worth it going to class. When the lifeguard brought out the toys, Adella became very animated and immediately began kicking her legs and moving her arms to get to the side of the pool for the the toys. It was the first time I had ever seen her initiate such an action. (And we were a ways away from the edge of the pool.) Whether it was a Pavlov response to the toys or a conscious action in which she knew that she could reach the toys if she just moved her legs and arms, it was a delight for her grandmother. She's still not swimming exactly, but she understands the actions of swimming and that the goal is to move from point A to point B.

But back to the point of the story. With only three classes left, Grandma thought that she was becoming more efficient. Change into swimsuits at home. Have the same bag stocked with ample supplies of diapers, both swimmers and regular, a comb, and shampoo ready to go at a moment's notice. Boxes of apple juice in the car for an incentive to leave the YMCA after the class.

Grandma also thought she had improved the after class dressing of herself and Adella after class. Today, she left Adella in the shower (they have these very nice family small changing rooms--shower, toilet, bench, changing table and a drain in the middle of the floor) while I got out and started getting dressed. I thought, how efficient. Rather than having us both naked as usual at the same time, I will get dressed first, then get her out of the shower and dress her next, thus saving the constant battle of her wanting to leave our changing room before I am completely dressed. Started pulling out my clothes. I had remembered my bra, a frequently forgotten item. Hooray. Pulled out my garments, separated the two pieces. Put on my top. Went for my bottoms. Discovered I had brought two tops, no bottoms.

So Grandma went commando in this arctic cold. Gotta love those seat warmers that warm an old lady's butt when she has one less layer of clothing.

Hooray for butt warmers.