Some things never go out of style

Our grandson just cruised into age 9, complete with a party of thirteen other 9 year-olds in the backyard (God bless his brave mother and father), all in a Harry Potter theme.

Care Package

Formula                            -        Check

Diapers                             -        Check

Rolls for lunch                   -        Check

Chicken salad for lunch     -        Check

Curried chicken with                              

    olives and artichokes    -        Check

    for dinner

Packaged couscous for      -        Check

    chicken dish

Rhubarb/Peach tart          -        Check

for dessert

Pesto pasta salad for         -        Check

     next day

Blueberry bread for          -        Check

    breakfast

Single serving Prosecco     -        Check

   for daughter-in-law’s

   mental health

I don’t usually write about my efforts in the kitchen, but it’s a good thing I enjoy it. I’ve been cooking for two days. Tomorrow I’m on my weekly mercy mission in a very small attempt to lighten a little of the load for the new parents in our family with some supplies and food they can just grab. My son’s back to work and my intrepid DIL will be squaring her shoulders and dealing with our two brand new twin grandgirls on her own.

          One person helpfully advised them that what they needed to do was, “get those babies on the same schedule.” Uh huh. That’s what’s needed – two tiny people hungry at the exact same time, needing their after-meal cuddling at the same time, having their diapers changed at the same time.

          Since that’s patently impractical, the other option is non-stop feeding, burping, cuddling, and changing. I’ve seen it in action and it really is non-stop.

So I’m packing the car and heading to Baby Central for the day. With any luck, this a hired day-time mother’s helper will soon be installed for the rest of the week.

Those years of my own are so far away, and I’m freshly impressed every time I go at how well son and DIL are managing. 

God, it’s good to be old.

Incoming!

          I remember sitting in my grandparents’ living room in Oklahoma, probably on a Saturday morning when there was no school or perhaps on a hot summer afternoon, mesmerized by yet another Tarzan movie. 1961 television didn’t have much to choose from in comparison to today’s offerings, but I was perfectly happy. Those old serials were just fine with me – Tarzan, Roy Rogers, the Thin Man movies. It probably had little to do with the family lore of one of my cousins having swum with Johnny Weismuller, but Tarzan was a favorite.

          Maybe because of this, a child, gorillas were often in the back of my mind. It probably didn’t help that my older sister made me sleep closer to the window in our shared room, “if the gorillas come, they’ll get you first.”

          Another dark fascination was lava, even if I was unlikely to encounter much in Arlington, Virginia, where I grew up, or Tulsa, when we moved to my grandparents’. Those natives in Tarzan's world, or alternatively, hapless explorers, were always crashing through the jungle, a searing river of lava right at their heels.

          Here in Massachusetts, I couldn’t be much farther from current events in Hawaii unless I chartered a boat but I’m still captivated. And apparently we have a whole new vocabulary to go with it.

          Laze: “lava” and haze” - a mix of hydrochloric acid fumes, steam and fine volcanic glass specks created when erupting lava reacts with seawater,

          Vog:  a hazy mix of sulfur dioxide, aerosols, moisture and dust, with fine particles.

          Lumb: a lava bomb, a projectile lump of lava

          And lately another concern just occurred to me when I realized that Kilauea kicked into action on May 3^rd, the day my sweet little twin granddaughters were born. For their parents’ sake, I hope this isn’t a portent of the level of excitement in the years ahead.

         

From Doctors to Baby Dolls

When you’re out of town for months at a time, something’s gotta give,

(Grand)Mother's Day Thoughts

I remember my tree – a holly. Last time I saw it, in my twenties, it was taller than me, which now that I think about it, was probably always the case. My grandfather had planted it in his Tulsa backyard when I was born, so the tree already had a head start.

          When each successive grandson was born, we planted a tree in each one’s honor in the yard at our house. A flowering cherry for Gerry, a peach for Gabe (which actually produced peaches, although the squirrels always beat us to them), and a Japanese maple for Eli. Sadly, we left them behind (trees, not grandsons!) when we moved, but at least we planted them in the front of the yard so it will still be possible for us to drive over and check on their progress.

          Now here we are in Condo Land, with brand-new twin grandgirls. We do have a generous backyard and a couple of flowerbeds, but anything as large as a tree would need board approval since all land is really common ground.

What to do? Guerrilla gardening with a midnight raid of shovels and baby trees?

I was thinking that since we’re now on the girly side of things, how about a couple of frilly azaleas up against the woods?

Off Hiatus

Yes, I’ve been away.

Mazel Tov!

This weekend’s Bar Mitzvah for grandson #2 was a roaring success.

The EGGs meet Venice

Looking for shark teeth, one of Venice's claims to fame.

          So, yes, you can fit seven people into a two-bedroom condo. 

Post Christmas Epiphanies

1. Who needs a Roomba robot vacuum to deal with the steady rain of dropped food from the grandchildren when you have a tiny dog snuffling across the floor.
2. It sharpens aging reflexes to have kids exploding from closets and behind furniture during ongoing three-day games of hide and seek.
3. Your trash is your friend. No one benefits from finishing up the leftover garlic bread.
4. Latkes (multicultural here) perfectly represent Hanukkah’s eight-day miracle since the smell of the oil they’re cooked in stays in the house for about that length of time.
5. Follow up behind your departing guests as they gather their belongings if you want to avoid an emergency trip to the post office to overnight missing car keys.
6. Dim the lights and fake a clean house before the holiday since after everyone leaves you’ll be getting out the industrial vac and that big new bottle of PineSol.

Night Maneuvers

     One thing you don’t usually learn about being a parent until it’s too late is the amount of time you’ll spend in the dark.

From cats to dogs

 Never mind that the Chinese calendar says this is the Year of the Monkey.

Lessons from Yesteryear

    

Grampa W. overseeing E at the bus stop.

      At this time last week we were hip-deep in another, long-forgotten world.

Festive Front Lines

 

          To my knowledge, no one in my side of the family has owned a gun. Oh, except that relative purported to be the first white woman in the Oklahoma territory, and who was known to tuck a pistol in her garter.

Of Cabbages and Kings

Last evening was all about cabbage and cribbage and the mixed success of each. 

GrandParentLand

          The pile of improbably-colored sneakers is gone, the doorknobs are de-stickified, and the two-inch-deep aggregate of popcorn has been scraped from the kitchen floor. The house is silent. 

Busy, Busy

 Well, by 10 this morning, I had:

Adventures in Food

     The other day my daughter called me for advice. This happens less often than you might think – she’s a very capable and self-sufficient adult, something I’m grateful for since I’ve never felt like much of a fount of wisdom.

EGG Entertainment

     We were into day two of EGG sitting. The parents of G major, G minor, and E were  away in a magical world without bedtimes, where life was one long play date. One grand boy was back from practice, another home from his friend's house, and dinner was over. The hour before bath and pajama time loomed ahead but I knew we'd be fine with maybe a televised basketball game or an animated something or other to fill the gap, never mind the weekend.

     We turned on the TV and saw the words that can strike cold terror into the hearts of grandparents everywhere: NO SIGNAL. My knees buckled slightly and I could have sworn my husband looked paler than he had a moment ago.

     What could have happened? The TV had been pouring out news of the latest crisis in  Europe all afternoon while the boys were in school.  The broadcasting source at this house is satellite rather than the cable we're used to, but I was impressed with the alacrity Grampa EGG showed in researching the problem. He whipped out his iPad and scanned the troubleshooting sites. One comment attributed our issue to the uncharacteristic cold we'd been experiencing. Another explained how they'd tracked wires, changed cables, even splicing a few.

     Visions of a 67 year old hanging out over an icy roof or peeling back protective casings of unfamiliar wires flashed across my mind. 

      Meanwhile, I dug frantically through the family's assortment of DVDs, thinking maybe we  could at least turn on a movie. 

     "Think," I called over my shoulder. "What has changed since this afternoon? The kids haven't been near the TV."

     "Nothing. And it was working fine before." He stared at his tablet. "Hey - here's some kind of box we should be looking for."

     Using a flashlight left over from someone's Christmas stocking, we pawed through mysterious devices attached to the television, then went on a foray to the basement. No luck. Then it occurred to me that since the dish was on the roof, perhaps it would make sense to look upstairs. Up we went and indeed found the box in question.  

     I experienced the same rush Stanley must have felt on finding the source of the Nile. 

     This was it!!

     Except the power button was dark, as dark as our prospects in a weekend with three boys under twelve and no television.

    Our aging hearts thumping, we tracked the power cord - around the back of the upstairs TV, behind a bureau, and to the wall where instead was plugged the charging cord for Grampa EGG's phone, and the one for the dish connection lying sad and unplugged on the floor.

     That day I learned a fresh lesson about mixed emotions.  I was grateful for the way my husband had instantly sprung into action to save the day, but he was in fact the reason it had almost kamikazied in the first place.

     

EGG Sitting

      An arctic blast is sweeping the US this week, and our travel plans played to our advantage. We headed south - to western New Jersey where this morning it was a tropical 8 degrees compared to our own western Massachusetts' 1.  

Covert Training

You may be surprised to learn you have within you the makings of a secret agent.