Something New Every Day

My youngest grandchild Marshall will celebrate his first birthday the day after tomorrow. This post about him was written a few months ago. In some ways, he is now an entirely different child—he is much more interactive with the world, more clearly makes his wants and desires known, and walks much more quickly than you realize until you are caught wondering just where he has disappeared. One thing, however, has not changed. I have read this post to all my family members who all agree—Marshall still loves kisses.

My grandmother, who grew a bit more forgetful with each year of her octogenarian decade, had a habit of saying, “Well, you learn something new every day.” And she usually did. We, her teen-aged grandchildren, would roll our eyes because we knew her something new was not really new but something she had learned the day, week, month, or even several years before. She just did not remember she had. Even though we, in our adolescent hurry, were impatient with her forgetfulness, Grandmother never seemed to lose her enthusiasm for learning, or rather relearning, something new every day.

As a granny nanny caring for young grandchildren, I find myself more like my grandmother, learning something new every day. And more often than not, my something new is not really new. It is simply something long dormant in my once encyclopedic, young mother know-how re-bubbling into my granny nanny consciousness.

I constantly find myself surprised as I relearn the habits and natures of babies and young children. I had long since forgotten that the degree of squirminess during a diaper change is equal to, if not greater than, the degree of stinkiness and messiness of a diaper. Or that the reach of a baby never exceeds his grasp when I am holding him on my lap trying to eat a bowl of cereal. Or most importantly, that a mother is always a mother, even if she is now a grandmother, who always knows the cries of one of her own.

Recently when I was dressing nine-month-old Marshall I was reminded of another something new—an infant is always observing and learning, even when we are not aware. Dressing Marshall, or any infant for that matter, is no easy task. Pushing his rubbery, resistant arm through a constricting t-shirt sleeve is far more challenging than pulling and shoving into a Spanx that is two sizes too small. So in order to lessen his resistance and frustration, I play the same peek-a-boo dressing game I used to play with his sister, as well as their mother, when they were babies. Whenever I begin to push his arm through a sleeve or pull a t-shirt over his head, I excitedly repeat the question, “Where’s Marshall’s hand?” or “Where’s Marshall’s head?” Anticipation builds as I increase the speed, intensity and pitch each time I repeat the question. And when his hand or head is finally visible, I exclaim with great fanfare, “There it is! There’s Marshall’s hand!” or "There's Marshall's head!" and shower his hand or head with kisses.

This particular morning I was a bit preoccupied when I dressed Marshall. I had quickly pushed his arm through his sleeve without the usual fuss. When he did not receive the usual praises when his hand emerged from his sleeve, he prompted me with a jazz-hand wave, his splayed fingers dancing expectantly for a kiss. He knew the rules, he had played the game well, and he expected his reward. I quickly obliged. Of course, I should not have been surprised by his response. I knew playing peek-a-boo was a cognitive milestone for an infant his age and we had been playing this game at least two mornings a week for months. (And sometimes wardrobe malfunctions necessitated that we play the game several times a day.) Yet I had never expected him to be more than a passive participant in our daily routine. I had forgotten that all his little infant neurons and synapses are constantly firing creating his ability to remember, to learn, and to act.

I learned that lesson all over again a few days later. In a quiet moment as we sat face-to-face, smiling at each other, his face suddenly dove towards me, his mouth widely gaping open, like a fish about to gulp his prey. He caught my chin between his jaws. When I broke the suction of his lips and gently pulled him back, he dove in again, this time catching my cheek. As he pressed his open mouth against my cheeks, he breathed heavily in and out. I pulled him away again. But he kept diving over and over again until he caught me on my open mouth. As we locked lips, he once more breathed in and out deeply as if performing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. As I struggled to disengage from him, I realized that Marshall was trying to kiss me.

Marshall is a baby who loves kisses. He squirms in delight whenever I rapid-fire kiss his chubby little cheeks and the folds of his neck. Like Baby in a favorite family picture book, Fran Manushkin’s Baby, Come Out!, Marshall loves kisses most of all. And because he loves kisses so much, he is determined to reciprocate. His efforts are still crude, but his intent is deliberate. He has consciously decided to kiss me, to imitate a skill I have unconsciously taught him, and in the process taught me.

And so I am my grandmother. Or at least my grandmother’s granddaughter. Learning something new every day from Marshall, Jim, and Adella. I want to believe I am far too young a grandmother to be stuck in an endless Groundhog Day loop, learning the same things over and over again, day after day. Yet I fear that is not likely given my postmenopausal muddled mind. Instead I will go for the gusto—embracing the same enthusiasm my grandmother had for learning something new every day.

The Granny Nanny

A granny nanny is unlike most other nannies. At least in the traditional sense. She is not Mary Poppins: She does not look prim and proper in a tidy uniform, travel by umbrella, nor hit high notes while magically cleaning rooms by getting toys to fly. Nor is a granny nanny simply an older version of a Swedish au pair from a registered agency: She does not serve organic vegan fare, adhere rigidly to a prescribed daily routine, nor cater to the whims of her employer. This is because most granny nannies are not paid for caring for their grandchildren. It is also because those grannies once wiped the runny nose and messy bottom of their grandchildren’s parent.

As a granny nanny, I am not an employee, I am family. I am not a parent, I am a grandparent. I stake out my position in some middle ground between employee and parent. And because I am old and am supposed to be wise and because I am old and can sometimes be cantankerous and because I am the grandmother, the boundaries of that middle ground seem to shift frequently according to my whim.  Ultimately I have the advantage over the typical nanny: I am the children’s mother’s mother. And because I watch the children in my home, I am certain there is no nanny cam. 

Never is this middle ground more evident than in my personal hygiene. My daughter usually drops off Adella and Marhsall early, sometime between 6:30 and 7:00 a.m.  When I am well rested, I am more like Mary Poppins. I am showered, dressed and perky. I greet my grandchildren cheerfully, eager to start the day. More often than not, however, I have not slept well. (Did I mention I am old?)  When Chrissy and the kids walk through my bedroom door, I often feel like as desperately tired as I did when my children were newborns—I acknowledge them with a grunt and fight the overwhelming urge to pull the covers over my head and burrow down deep in my bed. But because I am a granny nanny, I manage to roll out of bed, pull on a t-shirt and a pair of flannel pajama pants, and brush my teeth. If I am feeling overly ambitious, I comb my hair.

Of course the challenge of the roll-out-of-bed method is then finding the rare moment when I can grab a five-minute shower. Some days, I do confess, the logistics are far too difficult. At 2 o’clock in the afternoon, my son-in-law often finds the same disheveled granny my daughter left at 7 a.m. Because I am family, I presume, he pretends not to notice. Other days, however, schedules dictate that I must somehow find a way to take a shower and make myself presentable.

Last Thursday was one of those days. But just as I was about to jump in the shower, Marshall awoke from a morning nap that was far shorter than I had anticipated. My shower was destined to have an audience. Fortunately, my bathroom is ideal for just such situations. It is split into two parts: the shower and toilet are a small room, separated by a door from the sink, cabinets, and dressing area. I can contain my audience by simply shutting the door. The only hazard in this small room is the toilet itself, the splashy joys of which Marshall has not yet discovered. So I put down a few toys on the bathroom rug for Marshall, handed Netflix-savvy Adella my i-Pad, and jumped into the shower.

I was barely wet before Marshall’s toys were abandoned and he stood leaning against the shower door, peering in. He had a forlorn, plaintive look. The steam, or perhaps the shower scum, conspired to give the shower door a opaque look, giving Marshall the appearance of a starving Dickensian waif pressing his face against a frosty shop window, looking longingly for what he knew he could not have. It was clear Marshall wanted my comforting arms.

By the time I was shampooing my hair, he was wailing. Thinking that if he could see me he might stop crying, I carefully slid open the shower door a few inches and spoke to him. He took this gesture as an invitation, however, and immediately crawled over to the opening, slid the door open further and began lifting his leg over the shower runner.

“Granma, Marshall’s going in the shower,” Adella shouted as she grabbed him in the middle and began him pulling him out.

Marshall squealed his disapproval at her.

I just wanted a few more minutes in the shower. I quickly began considering my options. Do I take the path of least resistance and allow Marshall to join me in the shower for a few minutes?  Do I let him scream as his sister wrestled with him? Or do I get out of the shower and hold him?

I was reminded of the elephant mother Mrs. Large in a family favorite Five Minutes’ Peace. All she wants is five minutes’ peace when she takes her tea, marmalade toast, a piece of cake and a newspaper to her bathroom, draws a hot, bubbly bath and shuts the bathroom door on her three children. When her son Lester knocks on the door, begging to play his instrument for her, she must weigh her options. Her decision to allow him to enter begins Mrs. Large's slide down a slippery slope. Soon Laura demands to read a book to Mrs. Large, and then the Little One dumps his toys in the bath. Finally all three children jump in the tub with their mother.

I did not need peace, just a few more minutes. “Don’t worry,” I assured Adella.  “He can come in.”

She let go of Marshall and soon he had joined me in the shower dancing his happy baby dance, bouncing up and down ever so slightly from his knees and flapping his hands while joyfully shrieking. By the time I had pulled off his shirt, crusted with his breakfast oatmeal and yogurt (I congratulated myself on my efficiency for combining the undressing step with a quick laundry presoak), Adella had stripped and joined us as well. She sat at my feet on the shower drain, merrily singing, patting her hands in the slowly accumulating water.

I recognized that for a moment the needs of all three of us had happily converged. But I also anticipated that moment would be brief. I hurriedly rinsed my hair and body.

“Time to get out,” I announced.

“But I’m not done,” Adella said.

I did not want to tempt fate. I grabbed Marshall and got out. At least Adella will have the luxury of a long, warm shower, I thought. I grabbed my bathrobe and swaddled Marshall in a towel, cuddling and caressing his sweet baby skin. I put a fresh diaper and clean shirt on him and gently combed his hair. And then we watched Adella. Marshall wriggled out of my arms and went back to the shower door. Again he pressed the palms of his hands and his forehead against the door, peering at Adella. She turned and mimicked his stance from the other side, peering back. He smacked his hands against the door. She smacked hers back. Over and over again. They both giggled with delight.

“I’m done Granma,” Adella finally announced, and I turned the water off.  But she did not get out. First, she crouched over drain, studying the disappearing water. Then suddenly she stood up and let out a yell. Not a frightened or alarmed yell, but an exuberant one, approaching but not quite triumphant. It echoed slightly in the shower stall, encouraging her. She let out a second, louder yell. She reveled in its echo. And then she gave another yell and another and another in such rapid succession that the echoes seemed to mingle with each other.

Soon Marshall was back in the shower. They stood facing each other, Adella, naked and dripping, Marshall, half-dressed. She yelled. Then he yelled. They continued in this call-and-response fashion, each seeking to yell louder than the other. The shower stall reverberated with their shouts. I smiled at their joyous tribal celebration of innocence.

And then they stopped. Adella slid open the shower door and got out. I grabbed Marshall.

 “Let’s get you dressed, “ I said to Adella.

“No,” she replied. “I’m not getting dressed. I’m running away.” And so she did.

Mary Poppins would have used a spoonful or two of sugar. A Swedish au pair would have enticed with promises or threatened with rules. Her parents, who are not old and much busier than I, would have chased her. But I pulled the granny nanny card. I just let her be. In her utter nakedness.

I got dressed. I dried my hair.  And Adella ran through the house like a little wild banshee. I fed Marshall his lunch. Finally, she streaked past me to the sliding patio door off the kitchen. She slid open the door. I then gently yet insistently explained that social constraints dictated she be fully dressed before she dared take even a single step out that door. And lickety-split, she was dressed. Granny nannying by the path of least resistance. I had finally closed the loop on the longest five-minute shower ever.

A while later, we ventured to the park. I, a granny nanny, with my two charges. No one would have mistaken me for a prim and proper Mary Poppins or a stylish, slim Swedish au pair. I looked like any other grandmother with her grandchildren. Certainly I looked far more put together than the “me” who had rolled out of bed hours before. Neither my appearance nor that of my grandchildren betrayed any hints of our morning shenanigans. No one would know, not even their parents, at least until Adella becomes far more verbally eloquent. There is no nanny cam to bear testimony. For which I am thankful. As will Adella and Marshall be as well in twenty years or so when they bring home their beaus to meet me, the granny nanny. 

 

Giraffes and Tigers and Bears! Oh My!

“What am I, Granma?” Adella asks as she hops around the room. I am in luck—I have a point of reference. A moment earlier she was pretending to be a bunny. And last Friday, we watched Zootopia together. I know she likes its bouncy rabbit protagonist Judy Hopps.

“A bunny,” I say.

“Yes.” She smiles, triumphant. “Now your turn, Granma.”

I am confined to the rocking chair with Marshall, feeding him a bottle. He is in that fragile stage between wakefulness and sleep, blissfully content. For fear of nudging him toward wakefulness, I choose not to pantomime, settling for mere sound effects.

“Ribbit, ribbit,” I say.

“An elephant,” she guesses. Elephants have long been one of Adella’s favorite animals. She has a big stuffed elephant and elephant pajamas. Jumbo, as in the song Jumbo Elephant, was one of her first words.

“No,” I reply. “Ribbit, ribbit,” I repeat.

“A hippopotamus,” she guesses. I am perplexed. I do not even know what sound a hippopotamus makes. Does she know what sound a hippopotamus makes? I do know that I am always stretched to my capacity whenever I come to the hippopotamus in the book Polar Bear, Polar Bear What Do You Hear? The sounds I make for it each time vary vastly.

“Ribbit, ribbit,” I repeat once more. Somehow I think scrunching up my shoulders so that my neck disappears, making my lips protrude, and puffing out my cheeks to create a jowl-like appearance will give me the appearance of a frog.

“A butterfly,” she quickly guesses.

Perhaps my “ribbits” are not very expressive, I conclude. Or at least my particular vocalization for a frog is not in her repertoire. It is clear she has no idea. But she does not care. The fun of the game is in the guessing.

“I am a frog,” I say.

Adella does not acknowledge my answer. She does not say, “Oh, I see,” or “I should have known.” She does not care that I have preempted her guessing. She is excited because it is once again her turn to act.

“Now, Granma, it’s my turn.” She moves from one end of the family room to the other, her arms flapping as she twirls around and around.

“A butterfly,” I guess, once more aided by the fact that she has shown her hand in her previous guess about my frog.

“You’re right, Granma.” She is beaming—she has given a clue and I have guessed it. It is a moment of connection with the adult world. “Your turn.”

I am determined to give her a better clue this time. Marshall has nodded off, so I settle him firmly in my lap. I arch my arms over my head, my hands curled threateningly claw-like. “Grrr,” I whisper-roar with great ferocity.  I think my imitation of a bear is spot on.

“A dinosaur,” she says.

“No,” I reply, “but that’s a good guess.” She is used to going on dinosaur hunts with Uncle Daniel, a game he and Pop-pop invented to entertain Adella one Sunday afternoon when they were babysitting and Pop-pop wanted a few extra moments to nap. Uncle Daniel and Adella searched the house for dinosaurs until they found Pop-pop, the sleeping dinosaur. They poked and prodded the sleeping dinosaur, who then roared to life and then like a Tyrannasours Rex, slowly lumbered after a delighted, squealing Adella.

“A monkey,” she guesses next. From her perspective, another reasonable guess. She likes Curious George and often pretends to be a monkey when she eats a banana. Sometimes, she too has an impish way of getting into predicaments.

“No,” I reply again.

“A giraffe,” she guesses next. And I am reminded of a friend’s description of playing the parlor game Twenty Questions with his young children. Rather than asking logical yes-no questions, trying to deduce what object he was thinking about, his children would go straight to random guesses. Usually their first question was, “Is it a bear?” Perhaps that is why I have chosen a bear.

Then I decide to take a different track, make this a teaching moment.

“No,” I say, adding, “but the name of my animal starts with a B, the sound buh.”

I realize this clue is beyond Adella’s ability. She does know her alphabet. She can sing her ABCs. And she does associate some letters with names—A is for Adella, M is for Marshall. But she is egocentric—she has not yet grasped that the letter A is ubiquitous, not unique to her name, a letter essential to playing Hangman or that all those other letters work together to create words and sentences without end. But how will she ever know if I do not teach her. Pushing a child just beyond her borders of knowledge is an important part of teaching.

“A bee,” she replies ecstatically. “You’re a bee.”

“Nooooo.” I reply in that encouraging tone of voice which conveys the message “Welll…., not exactly, that’s a good try, you are almost right,” while voicing the word no. After all, she has drawn the connection between my letter B and the insect. Round One of my teaching moment has not gone as planned, but it does have a positive result I decide to go in for Round Two.

“I’m a Buh eh…,” trailing off, hoping she will add an rrr and complete the word.

“A tiger,” she guesses.

Maybe I am not giving her enough context, I decide. Undaunted, I rush in for Round Three, stretching out all three phonemes of the word bear.

“No, I’m a buh-eh-rr.”

She jumps up and down, excitedly. “I know. I know. You’re a buh-eh-rr,” she says, simply repeating me, clueless as to what kind of animal a buh-eh-rr is.

“You’re right,” I say, laughing as I surrender to the moment. “A bear. A bear,” I say, drawing the connection for her. “Grrr. I am a bear.”  

But Adella does not really hear me. She has moved on, completely missing the connection between the word she has said and the animal she knows. My turn has occupied far too much of her time. She has lost interest. I retreat to the safety of my corner, metaphorically speaking—I have never really left my rocking chair. At least Marshall is still sleeping.

And such are the nature of teaching moments with a preschooler: pure trial and error, over and over again. She keeps guessing and guessing and guessing until something sticks. And I keep trying and trying until something connects. One day, when she is a little older and her cognitive abilities a little more developed, this grandmother will more easily be able to teach Adella, helping her connect all kinds of dots. Maybe then I will be able to share my wisdom. But will it be as much fun? 

Big Sister

Marshall woke up this morning with a howl. I am not quite ready to greet the day, so I try snuggling under my covers to comfort him. Next I try the pacifier, his blanket, and cuddles. Then soothing words and pats on his back. But he is inconsolable. Finally, I enlist Adella.

“Adella,” I call. “Marshall’s unhappy. Can you please come into Grandma’s room and make him happy?” Marshall stops crying when he hears me call Adella’s name.

“Sure,” she replies. Sure is one of her favorite response words to requests. Although she has learned to mimic the inflection of a preoccupied adult, her sure has sincerity. I hear her little feet running down the hall. Marshall turns his head, listening and waiting. She comes into the room. In a split second Infant Hyde becomes Infant Jekyll, all giggles and smiles.

“Mar-shall,” she sings. His body wriggles happiness. My bed that had seemed a prison to him seconds before becomes a playground. They play together amid the hills and valleys of my comforter.

I rely on Adella. I am grateful she takes seriously her role as big sister. She is Marshall’s comforter when he cries. She is his protector when he is in danger, whisking away small toys, marbles and pennies. Above all, she is his spokesperson, informing me when he needs a white cupcake with sprinkles, wants to go outside to play on the slide, or needs an adult to pick him up when he has awakened from his nap.

Marshall, for his part, is enamored of her. He babbles at her as he watches her from his high chair perch at mealtimes. He laughs at her antics. He patiently endures her ferrying him from place to place. And without much coaxing, he will follow her up a flight of stairs. Unlike Adella, he is not interested in playing in the bright sunlight on the landing or surveying the neighborhood from the window. He is just interested in being where she is.

As I watch their dynamic, I am reminded of the Kindergarten journal of her Uncle Nathan that I unearthed from the bowels of my basement a few days ago. (Is it a tribute to my motherly sentiments or a condemnation of my hoarding instincts that I still have these journals twenty-one years after the fact?) Given Nathan’s prodigious output in these journals, I presume the students were assigned to write and draw every day in Mrs. Harris’s class. Given the formulaic nature of his daily entries, I also presume Nathan’s creativity was somewhat limited by both his spelling ability and his lack of syntactic prowess. Most entries read, “Guinea pigs (or dogs or cats or flowers or rainbows or football) are nice. I like guinea pigs (or dogs or cats or flowers or rainbows or football). My sister likes guinea pigs (or dogs or cats or flowers or rainbows or football).”

For Nathan, it was his big sister who was the arbiter of taste. Not me, his mother, nor his father, nor his best friend Matt. It was she who he wrote about day after day. What she thought mattered in his five-year-old world. (I confess, however, that I suspect that after a few months, Nathan started dialing in his entries—I know for a fact that as a child Chrissy never ever liked football.)

Big sisters, whether they are three or thirty, watch out for little brothers. Like her mother, Adella has ably assumed her role as big sister. Marshall, too, assumes his role as her companion, observing and learning. Me? As their sometime caregiver, I assume the role as facilitator, balancing the needs of them both. As I referee each interaction, I hope to subtly nourish their sibling bonds.

“Under the arms. Carry him under the arms, not around the neck.”

“Don't cry, Marshall. Adella still loves you. She shut the door because she needs some alone time.”

“No, Marshall can’t have a cupcake.”

“Gentle, Marshall. Don’t pull Adella’s hair.”

“Are you sure you did not just wake up Marshall? Why don’t we let him take his nap? Maybe I can play with you.”

Ultimately, I am a grandmother. I might spend time each week wrangling Marshall and Adella, but I am not their mother. It is my job to trust. To trust that I did my job when I reared my daughter and sons. To trust that I taught my children to love and respect and depend upon each other, to be a good big sister and little brothers. And to trust that my daughter will teach her children to do the same.

Pockets

Little Jim surprised me with a visit. Actually, from his perspective, he does not come to visit me, Anma, but rather Adella, his three-year-old cousin. His mother notes that when their car pulled up to my house, he excitedly remarks, “Adella’s house.” Because it is a cruel, cold April morning, he is wearing his grey Yahoo sweatshirt. The pointed top of his hood peaks over his head and the sides envelope his chubby cheeks, giving him the appearance of a Jawa, one of those short, hooded figures roaming the Tatooine deserts in Star Wars.

My little Jawa joins us downstairs playing. Although the cousins are happy to see each other, and often spend time chasing each other through my house, today turns out to be a day devoted to parallel play, Adella is absorbed with her treasures in a basket, Jim with the vintage (at least according to eBay) Fisher Price Little People. Jim, twenty months old, has learned the natural hierarchy of the cousins, and he comes up smack dab in the middle. Adella is bigger, more verbal, and not above grabbing a toy from him. Marshall is smaller, newly mobile, and not above grabbing for Jim’s nose or eyes. So as Jim plays with his Little People, he is quite guarded. Afraid to lose the toys he has claimed, he occasionally looks to find Adella’s and Marshall’s locations. But today he is safe and he plays uninterrupted.

After a few minutes, I see my little Jawa sitting on the stairs, along with one of the Little People, a small orange ball, and a toy cup. His arms are full—he has three items, and only two hands. He holds the toys closely to his chest.  He is a bit like a monkey caught in a monkey trap, who remains trapped only because he will not release his grip. Jim is determined to keep his hold on these items even if it means he can do little else but sit on the stairs with them. So there he sits. Uninterrupted, but unable to do little else but sit and hold his treasures.

It is my duty as his Anma to teach him the value of his pockets in his sweatshirt. I am reminded of a grandfather at the turn of the last century (19^th not 20^th), Joseph F. Smith, a patriarch of dozens and dozens of grandchildren. When he encountered his granddaughter Edith who had no pocket for her handkerchief, he insisted her mother sew a pocket in the girl’s dress. He felt all children should have pockets.

“Jim,” I say, “You have pockets. You can carry your toys in your pockets, so your hands are free.” Of course, I know that more than likely, putting his treasures in his pockets will not necessarily free his hands. Undoubtedly, he will take the opportunity to pick up more toys.

“Pockets,” he repeats, intrigued. His hooded head bends far forward over his little belly toward his pockets as he watches me put his toys one-by-one into his pockets. Unfortunately, his objects are large, the fabric soft, and his hands small, so he cannot maneuver the items into and out of the pockets himself. He needs my help. For some time, together, we put the toys in and pull them out of his pockets.

Eventually we leave the basement stairs and the downstairs toys. Jim eats lunch, and all too soon it is time for him to go home. Time to empty his pockets. It will not be long before his pockets are full of rocks and sticks and leaves, just like his father’s pockets once were. But for now I remove the toys, leaving the orange ball in his pocket.

“Pockets,” he says with his hand on the ball in his pocket.  And his mother whisks him out the door. He is undoubtedly too young to remember that his Anma has taught him how to use his pockets. The deep pockets of Joseph F. Smith, full of candy--peppermints, licorice, rock candy, and musks--was the common memory his grandchildren shared. But our pocket memory will be mine, not his.

Two days later, wearing his sweatshirt, Jim comes to my house again. His hood is down; he is no longer my little Jawa, but my sweet little boy with cherubic cheeks. There are no bulges in his pocket. Somehow he has managed to retrieve his ball from his pocket. But when I look again, I spy a Littlest Pet Shop piece peeking out from his pocket. I smile. Aw, pockets.

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.