Tag Archives: grandchildren

Jonah and the Baby Hat

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Oh my cookies! I am so glad that I have such talented friends. Can you believe that someone just sat down and whipped up this precious work of art? I’ve tried to knit before — Older Daughter patiently attempts to re-teach me every couple of years or so — and even my incredibly-simple-and-anybody-can-do-it scarves end up wonky. This baby hat is so cute I just want to play with it — I adjust the size and tie the ribbon and imagine this on a sweet little infant head. My friend Sherry Campbell, whose current work exile in Louisiana has significantly reduced the fun factor here in northwest Alabama, made this for our Grandbaby No. 2, expected to arrive in mid-November. I love how the colors and patterns and ribbon all work together in perfect adorability. I remember when Sherry first discovered knitting and took to it with dedication and passion, as she does everything. Then there was the famous road trip where she stopped at every Tuesday Morning for hundreds of miles so she could collect enough of the same type of yarn she needed for a special project.  But who can argue with talent such as this? And seeing this hat makes Grandbaby No. 2’s arrival seem all the more real. Well, that, and Older Daughter’s growing tummy. Bless her heart, she says she is sort of getting tired of 3-year-old Capt. Adorable always giving her the role of the whale when they play Jonah.

Capt. Adorableland

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Oh my cookies. I cannot believe it’s been a whole week since I’ve had the chance to sit down at my laptop to blissfully and abundantly waste time write thoughtful and meaningful blog posts. But when I tell you what I’ve been doing instead, you’ll understand: Being a full-time grandma. Yes! Our 3-year-old grandson, Capt. Adorable, stayed with us for several days while his mommy and daddy (Older Daughter and our son-in-law) did a major kitchen renovation and baby-nursery redo (in preparation for the Captain’s baby brother, who’s planning a mid-November arrival). And you know that I absolutely and positively adore being with the Captain 24/7 and if it weren’t for pesky obstacles such as having to work a little bit to make some money and wanting to spend more time with my husband than a quick bleary-eyed good-night kiss, I’d do it more often. At least, I think I would. This visit was actually the Captain’s longest here at our house by himself, and I did learn a few lessons.

A) You know how everybody says, “Aw, you don’t look like a grandma!” when you meet people in your normal life and they learn you have grandchildren? That’s because in your normal life you’re able to spend an hour on your hair and makeup in your by-now-perfected daily age-defying routine and spend the next hour in your closet choosing a coolly chic not-too-young but not-too-old outfit that hides and smooths and camouflages and flatters. When you actually are on grandmother duty, nobody says that. But it’s not your fault — it simply is because you have no time. No. Time. No makeup. No hair styling. No color coordination. You’re lucky if you can swipe on some deodorant, zip up the jeans you’ve worn for five days and find a T-shirt without chocolate-milk stains. Young-mom grunge is cute when you’re a 26 and look adorable in a pony-tail. Thirty years later? Not so much.

B) Stock up on whatever your pain-reliever of choice is — and I’m talking aspirin or acetaminophen or whatever here. No matter how fit you are, no matter how much you work out, no matter how many mountains you’ve climbed or marathons you’ve run, nothing compares to spending 24/7 in grandchildren-land. Especially if your grandchildren’s parents encourage those wonderful modern concepts such as Using Imaginations, Turning Off the Electronic Devices and Learning by Doing. The days of spending summer vacation parked in front of the TV are gone. Children today Get Out and Engage in Active Playtime. The result? A well-rounded and happily grounded child. And a sore and exhausted grandparent.

C) Remember the Mommy Network? No, not a Facebook group. I’m talking about when you yourself were a young mom and everywhere you went you just sort of naturally gravitated toward other young moms in similar circumstances. Well, the same thing is true three decades later: Grandmothers intuitively identify each other and quickly band together to commiserate, complain and plan a margarita night intelligently discuss child-rearing issues of the 21st century. And of  course there’s bragging. It’s a given that grandparents can brag on their grandchildren, who, naturally, are the brightest, smartest, funniest, strongest, kindest, most talented and most creative kids in the whole world. Every single one of them. Learn to listen politely and smile courteously as others share their stories since, obviously, they’re just filling time with their averageness until it’s your turn to dazzle with exceptionality.

D) And, finally, when the visit’s over and your household routine’s returned to normal and the cats have come out of hiding and you’ve cleaned cookie handprints off walls and roller-skate marks off floors and gotten all the chocolate-milk gunk out of the shot glasses, take a deep breath and enjoy a minute of well-earned quiet. Because even as you’re enjoying the chance to sip a glass of wine and read something that’s not Dr. Seuss, you can’t wait to do it all again.

A Genius is Revealed — or, Why I Think Capt. Adorable Will Make Me Famous

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This is one of 3-year-old grandson Capt. Adorable’s first attempt at actual photography. Genius! Brilliant!! Oh-so-talented!!! He’s sitting on his grandad’s tractor at his grandparents’ place in Tuscumbia, Ala. — which is about his top No. 1 thing to do, although we suspect that one day he’ll figure out how to turn it on and go plow the lower 40. On this afternoon, he’d gathered an admiring posse of girl cousins and their friends — another favorite activity — and then decided to round out this duo of red tractors and adoring females with another of his obsessions: Examining anything that clicks, moves and has tiny little parts — in this instance, my camera. So he leaned over from the tractor, grabbed it out of my hands and was snapping photos before I could say, “If you turn off the flash and use the ‘normal,’ setting, you’ll get a better shot.” He needs to work on lining things up and getting everybody in the frame, but maybe he was making an artistic statement here … you know, about postmodernism in an irony-less world and the interaction of our natural environment with human productivity combined with personal questions about the the supposed mutual exclusiveness of reality and representation. (I don’t know what any of that means, either, but thank you, Mr. Google, for teaching me how to talk like an art reviewer.) Of course, almost anything the Captain does is perfect to me, so I believe this is the start of a successful photographic career as well as the origins of a new style of photography that will come to be called the Hawk Pride Mountain Style and I’ll end up on the Today Show in 30 years saying, “Yes, I knew my grandson was a genius as soon as he grabbed the Canon PowerShot out of my hands.”

The Pirates of the Captain’s Backyard

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It’s after Memorial Day. It’s the first day of June. College students are home. Teachers are done. So it doesn’t matter that the calendar insists on a June 21 starting date  — around here we know that summer already is underway. Luckily, I’ve got the best thing for summer: A 3-year-old grandson with a knows-no-limits imagination. And a big backyard. Here we’re playing pirates. His ship is the slide/treehouse on the left and mine is the slide I’m (uncomfortably) sitting on, on the right. First we had to run around the yard looking for treasure, with a lot of “arrrr, matey” and other piratey phrases. Then we got on our ships to sail toward Treasure Island, since the whole running-around-the-yard thing didn’t yield much, gold-wise. We did find a silver and red pinwheel, which pleased me much more than it did Capt. (Hook) Adorable. Since I was having trouble finding Treasure Island — didn’t pirates have GPS? — the good Captain literally jumped ship and came over to help me. Good thing, too. No telling where I might have ended up. But perhaps Treasure Island is there over that fence? Naw — it’s just the neighbors’ driveway.

And in more “welcome, summer” news, click here for some great Southern recipes for the best of hot-weather eating, from the blender to the grill to the dip bowl. No oven required.

The Captain and Tendrils

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How 3-year-old grandson Captain Adorable went from hippie nature child to sweet little boy to cool rocker kid in 20 minutes …

We didn’t really realize how long the Captain’s hair was until the stylist combed it out — there was more than enough for a Locks of Love donation, which is what the Captain’s mommy wanted.
Oh so cute … this look says, “I use my inside voice and sit quietly in Sunday school.” And while the Captain can do those things (well, sometimes, anyway), they are not his favorite activities.
This is the Captain’s new look. It says, “I like worms, mud and climbing over anything that Mommy & Daddy say I can’t.” Bath time took care of the blue spikes, but they could reappear at any moment. 

The Captain’s mom, my Older Daughter, is having a hard time with the new ‘do. She was tired of people mistaking her little boy for a little girl — an understandable mistake, though — and going through more bottles of conditioner for his hair than she used on her own. But this is new. And different. It’s change. Her baby’s growing up. And mine, too. Sigh. 

 

No Audience for Little Boys

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I’m not sure what our (at this point) almost-3-year-old grandson, Capt. Adorable, was thinking here at his mothers’-day-out Easter program after-party. He’s in the 2-year-old class, which was the youngest group to perform in the annual spring event  — and by “perform” I mean “stare bleakly out at the audience and try to get out of his chair numerous times.” He loved singing the oh-so-cute little songs about bunnies and chicks and birds and flowers AT HOME. But, sadly, singing before an adoring audience of Mommy and Daddy and Kacky did not prepare him for singing in front of an impersonal audience of hundreds of strangers who did not jump up and down and hug him in delight after he finished each tune. He stuck it out, however, even as he silently implored his mommy and me with his precious Capt. Adorable eyes to please take  him offstage to someplace where there were trucks and trains and other cool things. He actually sing and make the hand motions to one song. Out of about 12, that is. But, still. We thought the party treat of chocolate cupcakes would cheer him up, but it took awhile. Does this photo capture him contemplating revenge? Is he already rehearsing the words his 37-year-old self will tell his therapist: “Oh my gosh, when I was almost 3 my mother and my grandmother forced me on stage and I’ve never been the same since.”? Or perhaps he’s simply eyeing the party plate of the child sitting across from him. Actually, however, I’ve seen this look before. It means “I’m not happy and I want you to know it but I’m not going to go all 2-year-old on you and scream and cry and throw myself on the floor. I just want you to know that I’m extremely not happy. And you will pay.” I first got this look when he was about 9 months old and I put this darling hat and scarf on him one windy winter afternoon. He was not amused. Sort of, you know,  like when he’s made to sit on a stage and sing Easter songs.

Safe from the Storms

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For the past few days, we’ve had storm evacuees at our house: Older Daughter with our son-in-law and 3-year-old grandson, Capt. Adorable. Their neighborhood in Huntsville, Alabama, lost power and water from this past week’s deadly storms, so they headed east to stay with family for a few days. Husband JP and I got to have them first! Oh my cookies, you know it was blissdom to have the Captain (and his parents, of course) at our house. We played trains. We looked for trains. We crashed the wagon. (This only means I pull him around town in the red wagon I pulled his mom around in 25 years ago and I go really, really fast. When appropriate, of course.) We walked to the drugstore for an ice cream cone. We went to the doughnut shop and bought doughnuts. We chased the kitty cats. We ate oranges. We cracked pistachios. He taught me how to play Dinosaur Train games on the computer. He showed me a “castle” I didn’t even know was in our town. We went to the park. We went to a playground. We jumped, bounced, slid, tickled, crab-walked, ran and swung. I didn’t have time to do official workouts while they were here, but every morning I felt as if I’d done Jillian Michaels’ 30 Day Shred, Level No. 3. Twice. Consecutively. But also I got unlimited kisses, hugs and flowers from the Captain. It’s been a long time since I’ve had such a gorgeous bunch of hand-picked blossoms. That’s worth a few aches and pains, I think. And at the end of a week when unbelievably violent weather has, tragically, ripped families apart, I’m humbly grateful that it brought our family together in safety.

Yard Art

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I pass by this house every day going to work, and I always noticed it and always sort of thought to myself, “Huh. There’s a red caboose in their backyard. That’s mildly interesting.” Until one day the full import of what I was seeing finally hit me, and I practically slammed on the brakes as I passed and I thought, “Dang. These people actually have a real live red caboose in their backyard!” I mean, this is the real thing — exactly what you might see on real live railroad tracks. But it’s just sort of sitting there in these folks’ backyard. And I immediately want to know: Why? And, how? And, of course, where can I get one, too? Because I know I would be the Best Grandma Ever in the Whole Wide World if I could score one of these.

Of Food, Clocks and Men

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Here are some things I’ve written lately — a couple of food stories and my weekly newspaper column — that you might like to read. And this does not mean I’m too lazy to put up a blog post this morning. No, it does not mean that at all. Nope. Definitely not.

Did you know that food can help you deal with the stress of this weekend’s time change? It’s true. Studies show that the first few days after springing forward (and you have to do that this Sunday morning, remember) can be stressful as folks adjust to the changing routine. But using mealtimes as a way to combat the effects of eating breakfast in the dark and supper at 10 p.m. can help! (This story includes some fun and easy breakfast ideas.)

And don’t forget that St. Patrick’s Day is Thursday. Even here in northwest Alabama, where leprechauns are pretty rare and Guiness is considered an exotic brew, there’s a deep Irish connection we can honor with food.

I’m almost 54 years old. I still do not always understand men. And by “men,” of course, I mean my husband. But when the “men” are a precious 3-year-old who’s cute and sweet and has a smile that makes me melt and say things such as “Sure, sweetie, I’ll read ‘Cat in the Hat’ again for the fifth time,” I understand completely.

The Slide ‘N’ Nap

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This is the smile I cannot get enough of. Well, one of them, anyway. Almost 3-year-old grandson Capt. Adorable has a complete repertoire of smiles but I’m especially delighted with the one that says, “Okay, Kacky, it’s your turn to go down the slide now.” We were playing in his backyard on a recent warm and sunny day and, as usual, he was in charge of the schedule. First we do sand-box construction work, then run around the yard for a couple of laps, then fall on the grass laughing with Roxie the Dog, then try to climb up and over the 7-foot-high fence and then try to surreptitiously fill up water in the red plastic bucket and tote the water to the sandbox to turn the construction zone into waterfront property despite Mommy telling him not to do that. Again. Then we play some basketball (I’m great with the Thomas the Tank ball and 4-foot-high plastic goal) and check to see if the carrots Mommy and Daddy planted in the garden yesterday are growing yet. And then there’s the slide. Actually, he has two in the backyard. One is short and wide and adult-friendly. The other is long and narrow and built only for those who consistently fail the “you must be this tall to ride” test. The Captain’s preferred method of playing on the slides is to A) make Roxie the Dog slide down and B) figure out a way he can ride his dump truck down. Plus, we both love the game that I invented called “Sleep.” See, I sit on the bottom of the short-and-wide slide (because I can’t fit on the bottom of the long-and-narrow slide) and I lie down on my back with my feet on the ground and I start snoring and the Captain climbs to the top of the slide and then slides down, bumps into my head, leans over to gleefully ask “Kacky? You awake, Kacky?”  and then laughs wildly as he jumps off the side of the slide to do it all again. This goes on for several minutes. If I’m lucky.