Today's been hard although that little girl and her beautiful mama helped me tremendously simply by spending time with me. We went to Costco and ate lunch at the Indian buffet and then went to Publix. I think that Maggie likes being the only child at home while her brothers are in school. She's such a mama's girl and she has her all to herself. She was sweet to me, too, and held my hand a lot and wanted me to carry her a lot. As Lily pointed out, children probably have no idea how heavy they can be. Maggie weighs over thirty-five pounds now I think, and that's a lot for an old woman's hip to carry very far but I do my best to accommodate her wishes.
Let me also say that we did not go ten minutes today without someone stopping and saying, "She is adorable!" about Maggie.
And she is. That child could have a career in modeling right now if we could figure out how to go about it. Maybe Lily should get on the baby beauty pageant circuit. I feel certain that if we taught her to sing "On The Good Ship Lollypop" and do a little tap dance routine, she'd become world famous and Lily and Jason could put in a swimming pool and Maggie would have a college fund. However, seeing as how it's not even worth it to try and put the child's hair in a barrette, this may not be a viable plan.
The reason the day's been hard is that this is the day Mr. Moon is leaving to go gator hunting and although I really am fine by myself and even admit to enjoying a bit of time to myself with no one's needs to be considered but my own, it's still hard sometimes to see him go. I'm sure that by the time he gets back I'll be like, "Who are you and what are you doing in my house and really, really? You expect me to do that laundry?"
Right now he's over at a mechanic friend's house getting the muffler on the boat patched up or something equally mechanical and I've got supper almost done because he's leaving around eight to go pick up his buddy at the airport who is flying in from Canada. Then they're going directly to the coast with all of their stuff and my house will have been emptied of camouflaged everything and equipment which seems to range from a bow to that hopefully-softened rope to fishing poles to lights to...well, I have no fucking idea. It's just a lot of stuff.
Camouflaged duffel bags full of stuff.
A truck and a boat full of stuff.
But the older I get, the harder any change is for me. I face each one with trepidation and having him gone is indeed a change, although not really. I should definitely be used to it by now. I mean, I'm married to a man who knows approximately when some of his grandchildren were born in relation to whether it was deer rutting season or not.
Well, you'll hear plenty about all of this for the next week or so. Mostly I'm just praying (as if) he doesn't get drowned, eaten by a gator, or lost in Tate's Hell.
By the way. Tate's Hell is a real place.
I also hope that my AC doesn't break down and that no major plumbing, electricity or falling tree incidents occur.
Well, there's a lot of other stuff I worry about too but let's just go with those for now.
Meanwhile, I have four kids who don't seem to mind spending time with me, Jessie and Vergil are coming back on Sunday so I will have the full quota of grandchildren, the new movie theater not too far from my house has opened up and I can, theoretically, eat chicken pot pies for supper every night that my husband is gone.
In an unrelated topic, I have been listening to Michael Pollan's How To Change Your Mind today and it is fascinating and I'm already trying to figure out how to get into a cow field and score some mushrooms without being arrested.
Stay tuned.
My boys. Oh, my baby boys. How they love each other. Gibson will just laugh and laugh at his brother and Owen will do anything to make him laugh. Tickle him, make faces, kiss him.
We were sitting on the couch in the library looking at a Good Dog Carl book and I was holding Gibson and Owen insisted that no, he should hold Gibson, and he did, his arms wrapped around him, tightly and safely, and that's a moment I want to remember.
I was so tired today but sometimes, being tired is exactly what I need in order to slow down and pay attention. I moved slowly through the day, fixing a lunch for Lily and me and Owen and we ate and we changed diapers and we played on the bed and we swung on the porch swing, the mosquitoes mercifully depleted in number. When Lily had to go to work, Owen hugged her so hard and he's growing up so fast. He gets jokes now, or at least simple ones that we come up with, and he is understanding the underlying way of things and he is just so damn loving and so damn sweet and funny. Okay, yes, he still growls like a monster sometimes but when he does that, Gibson laughs and laughs so he's getting a bit of positive feedback on that one. He can't wait to go Trick or Treating and get candy and he told me that a witch monster was going to steal his candy. He has a very rich imaginary world going on, that boy.
We took Gibson over to see the goats and the chickens next door and I showed Gibson Miss Flopsie on the nest. He was fascinated. He can scoot backwards now and gets so frustrated because what he really tries to do is not crawl but to stand up because (and I know this is true) he wants to run after his brother. If you hold him up he bounces and bounces and bounces and I can just feel his legs getting stronger and ready for walking. He will hold his arms out for people now and he looks at us with longing, loving eyes, that beautiful little boy, until we pick him up and smooch him fiercely. He ate apples slices sitting up in his high chair while we had our lunch but I think he really wanted our tuna casserole.
Oh. They are growing up. They are getting big. They are so entirely perfect in my eyes.
Yes. This is a grandmother post, pure and simple. I am a fool for those children and when I see the way their parents love them and take care of them, I am humbled and awed. When I see the way my husband loves on them I love him even more.
This is something, this grandmothering, even when I am so very tired, because they are not my babies but they are my babies and when I asked Owen if I could take their picture in front of the big tree, he posed with Gibson and held his hand and the shadows dappled them and the tree dwarfed them but not really because they are pure light and love.
And I am so grateful for them and every kiss and every hug and every smooch and every smile and every puzzle and every game and every conversation and yes, even every diaper and yes, even every POOPY diaper because their bodies are perfect and it is a joy to give them clean bottoms and it is all a joy and I am going to sleep very, very well tonight and I do not feel mean or bitter at all now.
Not one bit.
Ah, lah, that child.
Those children.
They actually play together now, Owen and Gibson. They love and adore each other. In the picture above, Owen was making Gibson laugh by laughing at HIM and it worked, as you can see. They interact all day long and when Gibson is napping and I go to check on him (which is about every three minutes), Owen comes with me, every time. Every time.
It was just the sweetest day all around. Easy and light and there was little fussing by anyone although of course I pretty much let Owen do whatever he wants if it doesn't appear to me that it's going to lead to possible devastation and personal injury. I swear to you though, after all those years raising my own four and now three years of taking care of Owen and almost six months of taking care of Gibson some, I still worry myself silly. Last night I woke bolt upright and thought, "Where's Owen?"
I was already worrying about how today would go and one of my worst fears is that I will somehow lose him, as if he could go down the drain if I don't keep a constant eye on him or, I don't know, slip out the door and hitch a ride to Vegas.
The child has a rich imagination. (I have no idea where he gets THAT.) He was hanging my silver bracelets off the switch on the light by my bed and he said, "Oh no. The monsters won't like this decoration."
"The monsters won't like that decoration? Are you decorating?"
"Yes. For the monster birthday."
Birthdays and monsters, like poop, are main topics of conversation for him. He wanted to go through my birthday candles today to get ready for his party. I asked what he wanted for his party and he said that he wants a cake, balloons and Waylon and Shayla. This sounds very reasonable to me.
He told me to call Boppy. That he wanted to talk to him and so I did.
"You coming over, Boppy?" he asked. "I at Mer-Mer's house."
As if I just let his grandfather hang out here, you know. Boppy allowed as how yes, he was coming home to see him and Owen dragged a chair to the kitchen door so that he could wait.
Such a sweet boy he is. When he isn't pretending to be a monster. He wanted to play with a bamboo backscratcher so of course I let him. He announced that it was his "golden weapon." He ate snacks all day long including parts of two nectarines which he insisted were orange pears. Also chips, grapes, smoothie, an energy bar, and a ginger ale which he calls gingerwhale. I kept offering him a cheese toast but he kept refusing that usual favorite and he ate half my almonds after refusing any of his own.
So yes, it was a great day and I even got the dishes washed and black-eyed peas cooking and collards, too so my house smells wonderful and the boys have gone home and Mr. Moon has gone off to do some hunting-related thing, I think. We had a little discussion, he and I, a few days ago about how much time hunting seems to be taking up in his life lately and he agreed that perhaps he was a bit over-the-top with it (okay, that's a lie, he never admitted that, I just pretended he did) and then when it got cool the other day he said, "Makes me thinking about HUNTING!"
"You," I said, "have brass balls."
He does.
Well, as I told him, I plan on being with him for the rest of my life and so if that's the way it is, that's just the way it is and that's the way it's going to be and hell, I like being alone anyway.
Heartfelt shit, y'all. That's what marriage is all about.
That and a lot of other stuff including blackeyed peas and collard greens and martinis on the porch and god-if-you-can't-laugh-you-might-as-well-die and clean sheets and holding hands and walking out to check for eggs together.
And now grandkids. It's such a cliche how when you fall in love with someone and want to marry them you think about how awesome it will be to eventually become that old couple sitting on the porch and watching your grandkids play.
You just didn't really think it would ever truly happen to you- you goddess or god of eternal youth- though, did you?
Well, watch out. And buy your porch furniture with comfort for bony old asses in mind.
One day I swear you'll find yourself kissing your grandbaby's cheek while your old man is kissing the same child's foot. And it'll be sweet.
I guess that's pretty much what it's all about. Well, and sex which is what leads to grandchildren eventually in some cases.
A good day, even if I didn't take a walk. The world still, somehow, manages to spin. I figured it would but I wasn't sure.
I'll take one tomorrow, having no need to take chances with earth-spin continuity. I promise.
I ate that pork chop last night AND half a sweet potato AND some green beans and they were good. Especially the pork chop.
God, I love the pig. I feel bad about the way they raise pigs on factory farms. I do. I wish we raised our own pigs. Humanely and so forth.
Not enough to do it, though.
My first husband and I raised a pig once. It was a terrible experience. She got huge. I mean, as big as a hippopotamus and she'd get out of her pen and come stand by the steps of our little trailer and terrorize my children. I was afraid she'd knock the trailer off its blocks, rubbing her itchy back on it. We called her Pigosaurus. When it finally came time to take the nasty critter to the killing shed, we couldn't get her onto the back of the truck. Every time we'd throw a rope around her head, she'd fall over squealing in what sounded like death throes. What did we know? We were hippies. We'd traded a car for a truck and a pig. We couldn't get the pig on the truck. It became an amusement to try and get that pig on that truck. Every time a guy or guys came over they'd go out and try to get the pig on the truck. Finally a group of guys girded their pig-rasstlin' loins and hauled that pig up the ramp successfully. She was driven away and came back wrapped in white paper in the form of hams and chops and so forth. I didn't feel bad at all about eating her. She'd been a torment to me and insisted on wallowing in her poop, even though her pen was plenty big enough to avoid it and she'd poop in her water for no reason that I could see although maybe she had a reason- I don't know much about swine behavior and never have.
I had grown up on a book called Clarence The Clean Pig and it was not highly informative as to real pigs and the foulness and hugeness of their poops.
Anyway, that's why I don't raise pigs.
And knowing all that I do know about pigs, I shouldn't even want to eat them but I can't help it. I do. I can't and won't buy a ham to bake because I would eat it all to the bone, every scrap and morsel, all by myself, a ham as big as a Volkswagen, I would eat it, and then I would cook the bone with beans and eat them. Oh yes, I would. As it is, I don't use any pork in my beans or greens as good old lady Southern cooks are supposed to do. I have learned to enjoy them cooked without any pig at all but I tell you what- when I do eat beans or greens which have been cooked with bacon or with ham or with smoked hocks, I moan in pleasure, I swoon in ecstasy.
I realize I have been fooling myself about not missing the pig in the vegetable.
But. What is one going to do?
I hear that lard is making a comeback and if we still spent our days tilling the fields and milking the cows and busting rocks it would be fine to eat lard but we don't and it isn't.
Ah. We are so dainty now with our work-outs and our olive oil.
We're all going to die anyway.
Lily and Jason and the boys are already in Jacksonville. Lily has been sending me pictures.
Here are two of Gibson:
He is just starting to eat puffs which are a baby-version of a cereal and I think he looks like a baby bird, opening his mouth to get one. He kisses that way, too. When he wants kisses, he opens that bird mouth just that wide and thrusts his face towards the face he wants to kiss. He is a joy, that boy and I could kiss him all day long.
Here's Owen, already hot and sweaty, studying the map with his Aunt Kelly, Lily's best friend.
I know he's my grandson but isn't he beautiful? Isn't he just purely beautiful?
Well, I need to get busy. I am going to go take my mother to the eye doctor today. They took her yesterday for an injection for her macular degeneration and although these treatments have saved her vision, they are becoming increasingly apt to give her side-effects and I hear that this morning her eye is swollen shut and very painful and needs attention. This will be my mission today.
But first, two more things.
That guy who set the grass on fire accidentally while trying to stage a protest at General Mills because he didn't like their pro-gay stance? He died! Oh my god. Not in a fire.
Article here.
I guess that whole thing wasn't a fake. And I would not wish his death. He was foolish and inept but at least he just set some grass on fire. He didn't take a gun and shoot anyone.
As I told Mr. Moon last night when I saw the pictures from the article, Bill Clinton's face always showed exactly what he was feeling. And it obviously still does. There is something so human about that man. He feels joy and as cliched as it sounds by now, he did indeed feel your pain.
You know what? It has been a better day. And I did spend time with my beebies. And it did even rain.
I did not walk. I am letting this nerve or whatever it is rest and as the day has progressed, it has begun to feel better. I guess maybe I'm not dying. I'm one of those hypochondriacs who really doesn't talk out loud (very much) about my possible terminal illnesses although I constantly have two or three, at least, going on in my mind. I don't talk about them because that would make them real and also, someone might suggest that I do something insane like GO TO A DOCTOR and forget that shit.
I'm one of those people who will probably die because I have a heart attack and will refuse to let anyone call an ambulance. Hell, I won't even tell anyone I'm having chest pain. I'll just pop an aspirin and go lie down. And you know what? If that's the way I die, it'll be JUST FINE! I was talking to my ex-husband's wife (aka, my children's other-mother) the other night about dying and we agreed that we want to die in the middle of a sentence saying something like, "And let me tell you one more thing..."
BOOM! DEAD!
Screw this long-term illness shit and getting to say good-bye to everyone. Good-byes are highly overrated in my book. I tell everyone I love good-bye with a hug and a kiss every time we part. If that's not good enough, well too bad.
As if we get a choice.
Anyway, Lily and I went to the Latch-On today. Or whatever it was called. It was awesome. I missed "the moment" because Owen didn't want to hang with all the nursing babies and toddlers but wanted to go into the kids' area of the library so I took him. I think Lily was a little worried that Gibson wouldn't want to actually nurse when the moment came but I hear that he cooperated like a champ. There were a lot of ladies there and a lot of babies and a lot of toddlers. Made my old hippie-heart happy.
It was fun hanging with Owen, too. There's a little platform thing that the kids can climb and I observed Owen trying to get close to a little girl who was reading up there. She was probably about seven, WAY too old for him but he gave it a valiant effort.
"You want hold my hand?" he asked her.
"No," she said in an airy tone of voice, her nose buried in her book.
"I give you kiss?" he asked.
"No," she said.
"I give you hug?"
"No," she said again and that was the extent of his bag of tricks but he took it like a man.
He did make friends with another girl whose name was Marie. Marie was five and quite a hoot. She informed me that her sister, who is eleven, is a very good singer. She let Owen hold her hand.
SCORE!!!!
When we left the library, Owen said he wanted to come to my house and so he did. We had to go to the store first and Lily bought him a treat while we were there- a strawberry milk. You know, like chocolate milk, but strawberry flavored? On the way to my house, Owen learned a very important lesson which is that if you suck down approximately half a quart of that stuff in approximately one minute, you will get a terrible belly ache.
Which he did.
"Aaaaggghhh!" he said from the back seat. "My belly hurt!!!"
"Did you drink all that milk already?" I asked him.
"Uh-huh," he said. He was gripping his midsection and panting like a dog.
"And what did you do with your gum? Did you swallow it?"
"Uh-huh!" he wailed.
"Well," I said, "If you need to throw up, just do it and I'll clean you up when we get home. You really shouldn't have swallowed that gum and then drunk all that milk so fast, baby. I'm sorry your belly hurts but that's what happens."
I tried to demonstrate how to breathe slowly in through his nose and out through his mouth to get through the pain but he wasn't interested. He continued to pant and moan. And then he burped.
"Did that help?" I asked.
"Uh-huh!" he said. And he was fine.
And we had a very good time at my house. We played with the chimp who hugs and hoots and we played with Big Bear ("I miss you Big Bear!" he told him) and he put make-up on both the chimp and the bear and also himself and on me. We washed the dogs and were stunned at the number of fleas we saw. He had lunch with his Boppy and we went and checked out Mr. Peep and his new girlfriend and we collected eggs and we played hiding games and we kissed Boppy good-bye when he left to go to Bradenton to see his sister.
"I will miss you, Boppy," he said. "You come home soon?"
"I will, Buddy," Boppy said. "I'll miss you too."
I love it that Owen knows what missing someone or something is these days. I love it when I walk in the door to his house and he throws himself at me and says, "Mer-Mer! I miss you!"
Jesus. Could he be any sweeter?
He also told me today that Gibson is going to hold his hand and walk soon. I am quite frankly stunned at what a loving brother Owen has turned out to be but I give Lily and Jason all the credit for making that happen.
Speaking of Gibson, here are two pictures of him in his car seat. I should have an entire gallery-showing of Gibson-in-his-car-seat portraits. It's just that I sit back there between the two boys when I'm going somewhere with them and Gibson keeps grinning at me. I can't help it. I have to take his picture!
That child is teething with a ferocity the likes of which I have never seen in my life. He got those first two bottom teeth and now all he wants to do is gnaw like a beast on anything he can get his mouth on. He went through a small phase of wanting to gnaw on his mother's ninnie but he seems to be over that. We all have bruised and shredded knuckles. I told Lily that all of these teething toys and frozen breast-milk cubes are fine and dandy but that what he really needs is a pork chop bone to teeth on.
She was a bit taken aback because of course she's doing what she's supposed to do which is to introduce one food at a time and wait a week until she introduces another and so the idea of just giving the child a bone to chew on is a bit out of her comfort zone. But think about it- wouldn't that be the most natural thing a child could chew on?
If you're a vegetarian, please forgive me but this boy is way past the chewing-on-a-carrot phase if you ask me. I am telling you- he would gnaw the paw off the cat if he could get it in his mouth.
Have you seen this video?
If you haven't, you should. What IS it about an English accent? Anyway, that could be Owen and Gibson except that Owen would never stick his finger in Gibson's mouth. He knows better.
So it's Friday night and I'm all alone although Lis is going to come and spend the night with me after her gig at the Mockingbird. Why aren't I there? Well, because I'm lame and also because I went out twice last weekend and because I can't sit for that long. But I'll get to see her tonight and tomorrow morning and that will be a lovely treat.
It HAS been a better day and I'm mighty glad of it. I don't feel as if I am dying anymore although I AM feeling extremely itchy everywhere from my chronic allergic reaction to something I'm doing or eating and I'd just take a Benadryl but if I do that, I'll fall asleep and I really want to try and be awake when Lizzie gets here.
Here's two more pictures:
I just saw this banty rooster (whom I THINK is Topsy) doing the hey-baby-ya-wanna-fuck? dance next to Curly Sue who is twice his size. She politely refused him.
And the book I started reading last night.
I thought I'd read all of her books but it turns out that I have not. I got that in Mobile when Mr. Moon and I were there back in...hell- when WAS that? A few months back.
There never was and never will be a writer like MFK Fisher and she's as soothing and sensible and entertaining as my chickens and I am grateful for many, many things and one of them is her.
The only regret I have about today is that I didn't go to Chick-fil-A and kiss a girl. I would have happily and lovingly kissed all of you, even those of you who are not girls and I'm not just saying that to make a social comment.
I renewed my nursing license today which means that I have now completed all of the incredibly (for me) anxiety-producing tasks which faced me this month.
I renewed my driver's license.
I did my continuing education units and renewed my nursing license.
I went to the nurse practitioner and got my lab work done to get my natural (haha!) hormone prescription renewed and have a new script ordered.
I felt as if I had just built the Taj Mahal when the pharmacist told me that yes, my prescription had been renewed and would be ready for pick-up on Thursday.
And then I realized something- I am depressed.
Not horrible depressed, just sort of regular old depressed and it's hardly worth mentioning but you know me. I mention almost everything.
So. Instead of facing an empty afternoon of beating myself up because I wasn't doing something constructive with my life I went and got Owen and brought him home with me. ENOUGH! IT WAS TIME!
And it was good and it was wise and we had a great time.
We played and we played and then we played some more. "What play now, Mer-Mer?" he asks me. We played with toys and he's getting so imaginative. Little games come about and he makes up stories for whatever he's playing with. He lined up all of his little farm animals and he told them, "Be patient." I am not sure what he was telling them to be patient about, but it appeared to me that they were, in fact, being very patient, the goat, the pig, the cow, the sheep, the horse. We did some puzzles and he rode his trike and told me he was going to get the mail. He wanted a smoothie and he wanted to help me make it and he did. He pretended to call his Aunt Jessie a lot because I told him she was going to be here soon. "Come now!" he told her on the pretend phone calls. "Okay, bye!" He rode his horse and we watched some kid videos and we watched something called Top Ten Funniest Baby Videos and he laughed and laughed at the chortling babies. He played with my old antique Zippy Chimp and told Zippy that he would take him to the store but he had to be a good boy and sit in the cart. He wanted to give Buster a treat and so we did. He saw Boppy getting ready to "fix" Buster's ear wearing gloves and he demanded gloves of his own and I found him some purple rubber ones and while Boppy was doing the dog operation, Owen insisted I lay down on a blanket on the floor and he rubbed my ear with his gloved hand and pronounced it fixed. He looked closely into my eyes with a flashlight and said that I had monster eyes. We hid from tigers, we read books, we ran around outside in the rain for a little bit until the mosquitoes drove us back in. He got so dizzy, twirling in circles that he fell over in the dirt and thought it was the funniest thing ever. Until he went into the bathroom to wash up and kept dropping the soap and then THAT was the funniest thing ever. While I was sitting on the floor he lunged for me and I pretended that he'd knocked me down and I held him to me and told him that he'd knocked me over with his love and then THAT was the funniest thing ever and he did that over and over and over again and he helped me sit back up every time and I probably have a bruised back but what the hell? Who cares?
He's my boy. He's my joy. He's my grandson full of the devil and sweet as pie.
Here he is in the fig tree. "I so tall!" he crowed.
Yes. He is so tall.
His daddy came and got him and brought Gibson in and here's what that boy looks like today:
And for Gibson, that's about a one-quarter smile.
And you know what? I don't feel nearly as depressed now. Yes, I have the melancholia but it's not the eat-your-soul kind. It's the aw-honey-go-tidy-up-and-eat-some-leftovers-and-go-to-bed-and-read-a-book-and-it's-gonna-be-all-right kind.
I also have chiggers, I think, and yes, probably a bruised back but these too shall pass. I've had my kisses, my hugs, my laughs, my smiles. And, my ear has been fixed by a young doctor wearing giant purple rubber gloves.
And now, if you haven't already, go over to Elizabeth's and read what she wrote today because it is amazing and heart-felt and she said what I feel about being an American.
The Dark Knight was showing at the same theater where we went to see Moonrise Kingdom and sure enough, people were buying tickets for it.
I can't read the reports of the massacre which occurred in Denver last night. I just can't.
What good does it do?
Young man has a gun, uses it on people.
Death. Blood. Mayhem.
I can't. I just can't.
I can talk about Moonrise Kingdom.
It was a precious movie. And I don't mean precious in that way that means twee or overly sweet or any of that shit. It was just precious.
It was about love. It was about how love can save you. I think.
I cried at the end and I'm not sure it was a crying-at-the-end sort of movie. But I couldn't help it.
I'm going to go see it again. I feel like I missed about two-thirds of it at least. There were so many levels to study and mostly I was just enjoying it on the level of enjoying it. I was enjoying the visual gorgeousness of it and the music and the faces of the actors, especially the little boy who played Sam. I think that Wes Anderson must love faces as much as I do.
Well. If you haven't seen it, I would say go.
After we watched the movie, Liz and I went and had coffee and talked.
Oh god, it was so good.
I met this Liz at the Birth Center when I started working there in about 1987. I fell in love IMMEDIATELY and probably sooner. We've been through a lot together. She was with me when I had Jessie. She's enlightened. I told her that today. I doubt she believed me but she is.
You know how some people just say YES to life? Well, that's Liz.
Let me tell you this: If Liz were here right now and she heard the rhythms coming forth from the church next door that I am hearing now, she'd walk right out the door, across the yard, and into that church.
I should too.
I'm not Liz. But just knowing her is a saying of yes to life. I swear it is. We met over a birth. Now we talk a lot about death. But we are still in the in-between. We are both grandmothers. We know some stuff. We know we don't know it all by any means. I know I love her.
I stopped by to see my boys on my way home. Owen. Owen. He's going to be three soon. Do you realize that? Three years old. He bade me come into his cardboard castle with him. The cat came in too and we hung out, the three of us. You know what he told me today? He said, "I like you." My grandson likes me. I guess that's about as good as it can be. For me, at least.
Gibson is four months old today. One third of a year. I got to give him a bottle and the way he held my finger in his hand is something I hope I remember on my death bed. Speaking of death. And birth. And in-between. He is starting to eat some food and he loves it. So far he has had bananas.
And tonight, Lily steamed some organic carrots and mushed them up and this is what he looked like when he had some:
Lily said he liked them. I think he must have been trying to figure out whether or not he did when she took this picture which doesn't even really look like Gibson because he usually looks like this:
He is the smilingest baby I ever did see. He's like the Buddha of Babies.
And now I'm home and I can hear the drums from next door winding in and out of the air like snakes; da-DUH-DA, da-da-DUH-DA.
I have to cook my supper and eat it and go to bed because I am so damn tired. Sometimes I think I just get exhausted from all the stuff that goes on in this world that shows that there is not nearly enough love. Which can save you. Love can. Sometimes I think that the older I get, the less energy or interest I have in anything which isn't about love becomes more and more profound.
And sometimes, I think that's okay and natural. I think we're all desperate for it. Love.
I know I have been for my entire life. And been blessed to have a lot of it. And old enough to admit I need it bad and to know that you do too.
All right. That's all. Maybe, if you want to, go see Moonrise Kingdom with someone you love. Then, if you want, go see it again with someone else you love. I sort of want to see it with every person I love. Just thinking of that makes me feel really tender.
Dear god, I am having the hot-flash of the ages and if I had a swimming pool, I would tear my clothes off and jump in but I do not and so I sit here, bearing it.
That is all you can do with a hot flash. Just bear it. Know it will pass.
I've actually been sitting here trying to write and just the very boldness of such an activity is giving me the hot-flashes. It's been so long since I've done this. With every word I type there seems to be a demon poking me with a hot pitchfork, yelling at me to shut-up! you suck! what the hell are you doing? and why aren't you out there in that garden, getting some real work done? You afraid to sweat, woman? Well, I'll give you sweat anyway, you fool.
Or something like that.
It's been a decent day. I went for a walk and then Lily and Jason and the boys came over. It was a treat to have them all here and we went out to the porch and the chickens came up,
thinking that maybe we were out there to feed them so I went and got some bread and we did and Owen ate some of the bread, too.
Owen owns this house and the yard too. He knows it. Everything here is his for his use and he knows all the hiding places and all of the secret stashes of his bamboo and how to feed the chickens and where Mer-Mer keeps the chocolate and the juice and which cup he likes to use for that juice. I don't know why but this just amuses the hell out of me. Three adults wandering around the house going, "Owen! Owen? Where are you, boy?" and he's only been gone for seven seconds, if that.
Gibson, of course, still has a lot of learning to do in regards to Mer-Mer's house but he'll get there. The other day I wiped Owen's old walker down with bleach and Fabuloso and when he's ready, it'll be there, ready for him to get around and start to figure it all out.
I tried to get a decent picture of the two of us on Photo Booth but he suddenly decided he needed the ninny and in the three seconds it took for me to pose with him, he went from smiley baby to throwing-a-hissy baby but I think he's cute anyway. Isn't he getting chubby?
Owen's getting pretty darn annoyed with the camera. I hear that down in Satellite Beach one of his great-aunts started paying him dollars to let her take his picture. This cannot be good. His Mer-Mer is certainly not going to be paying him for the privilege of taking his picture. But I guess if I only saw him every six months or so I probably would.
Right after Lily and Jason and the boys left, Judy and Caroline came by. That was nice too. We sat on the back porch and visited and talked about such things as sexual abuse and aging and death and dying and I don't know what all. Women, after a certain age, do not fuck around. We get right to it. I appreciate that. I don't have the time or energy for garden-club chit-chat. Whatever that is. Maybe garden-club chit-chat is a myth in my own mind. Since I have a policy of not being part of anything that has the word "club" in it, I guess I will never know.
Which might be my loss and I admit that.
I've talked to May on the phone and then Lizzie called me and I talked to her. No garden-club chit-chat in either one of those conversations although Lis and I do talk about our gardens. I told her that my latest fantasy is buying and moving into a townhouse. She laughed at me. She knew I was kidding.
Sort of.
And Mr. Moon's gone to auction because thankfully, someone wants a car, and I guess I'll cook some green beans
and potatoes and tomatoes for my supper. Maybe with chick peas. In a sort of curry thing. I wish I had some coconut milk but I don't.
It's time to put the chickens up. I've got the air conditioning on. I'm going to try and sleep tonight. I sure hope it happens because I'm tired of feeling even crazier than I usually do.
I heard a guy on the radio today say that perhaps depression is not really a mental illness anymore than homosexuality is, but simply part of the human condition and that "normalcy" doesn't really exist and that made me feel some better. My normal is not yours and his normal is certainly not mine and yet, even within my normal, there is abnormal and I'd just as soon get back to regular crazy.
Does that make any sense?
I doubt it.
Well, what in hell DOES make sense these days? Grandchildren do and so do friends and love always makes sense, even when it doesn't, and it makes sense to have a smoothie for breakfast made of yogurt and fresh fruit because no matter what you eat for the rest of the day, you have had your fruit.
It's unbelievable to me how cool it is this morning. Fifty-seven degrees and according to my weather app, it FEELS like fifty-seven degrees but how in hell do they know? If you're from New Jersey, it might feel like fifty-eight whereas if you're from Lloyd, it might feel like forty-eight.
It's all relative. You start throwing stuff like feelings into science and boy, you've got problems.
I know. That's not what it really means, but still.
I continue to be in love with my iPhone. I can't help it. The other day Billy needed me to go get the milage off of his granddaddy's Model A Ford which was in our garage (long story) and so I went out there with my phone and it was dark in the garage and in the car so I used my flashlight app to find the odometer and then the camera app to take a picture of it and then the message-sending ability to mail the picture to Billy and there you go.
Of course, back in the olden days (a few months ago) I could have walked out there with a regular flashlight and found the odometer and written down the milage and come back into the house and either e-mailed Billy or called him but that's not NEARLY as cool, y'all.
When we were on the island I got so excited about Julia's Audubon Bird App that I bought one too. I sprang for the entire $2.99 it cost and now I can identify birds with pictures, shapes, family, name and hear their calls. And see the maps of their ranges. And keep track of all the birds I see but I probably won't do that. But. I could. And for $2.99?
Mr. Moon and Lily and I all play each other in Words With Friends. That one was free. I can find your blogs on my phone (google reader app) and read Huffpost (there's an app for that) and Facebook too if I'm really bored. I can shoot pretty damn good video with it. I haven't exactly figured out how to transfer the video to something like this blog but I'm sure it can be done. I can go to Youtube and watch teeny-tiny videos of Keith Richards if I want. I HAVE KEITH RICHARDS IN MY POCKET! This, alone, is worth the price to me. Not that I actually sit around and watch videos of Keith Richards but I COULD IF I WANTED TO! Or needed to.
I can check the weather with radar on two different apps that I have. I can "surf the web" as they say. I can google anything which comes in handy as my brain ages and loses its information. E-mail? Yep. I can even post a blog. I still suck at the typing part but it can be done. Slowly. For me. I love watching the "young people" type on the iPhone. Their deft and nimble fingers fly and blur. When I type it's like dut-dut-dut-dut, shit, dut-dut-dut....
Billy says his favorite app (I don't think he has an iPhone but he has a smart phone) is Netflix so he can watch all of his favorite TV shows while Waylon is watching "his" shows on the big TV. I'm not there yet. That would require concentration. I also haven't figured out how to download audio books but I know that that, too, can be done.
For the last play I was in, I downloaded and used a recording app to help me learn my lines. I can write myself notes and reminders on my phone. I can ask Siri to remind me of stuff and she will. Hell, I can ask Siri anything and she'll answer me unless she's premenstrual or something.
I can also play Angry Birds.
Let's not discuss that.
So yeah. I'm sort of wondering how in the world I managed to get along before this device entered my life. But you know what my favorite thing to do with my phone is, right?
Taking and receiving pictures of my grandsons. Of course.
Like these two of Gibson.
Grandparents used to be restricted to carrying around photos of their grandbabies in a small album or in their wallet. Ha! Screw that shit. Now we can pull out our iPhones and bore the entire universe with hundreds, HUNDREDS, of darling pictures.
It's a dream come true.
And of course we can text the parents of our grandchildren and demand that they send us cute pictures right this second. And they do!
We can also text each other and say things like, "Can you please pick up some bananas on your way home?" and "We need a new bale of hay for the chickens."
Etc.
I suppose we could even sext each other. Mr. Moon and I. I could send him provocative pictures. Theoretically.
If I was still provocative in any way.
All right. That's enough of that. Good morning. It's Monday. I don't know what I'm doing today. I should try to take a walk and then get in the garden and work a little bit in there.
Or something.
Whatever it is that I do, I'll probably take my iPhone with me. I might need to identify a bird or take a picture of some blackberry bushes or...wait. Make a call! Yes! You can even call people on your iPhone!
Again, this is fairly theoretical because I very rarely call anyone and hardly anyone calls me.
Today is chicken carpentry day. Mr. Moon is going to rebuild a chicken coop that will go inside of the big coop to put the young 'uns in because the little coopette they're in now is not adequate to their needs. It's not tall enough, for one thing. As I said, those birds can fly. Really fly like real birds, not like regular chickens who do hop-flights. The banty roosters next door roost up in the tree branches above their enclosure and their enclosure does not enclose them very well which is why we had eggs from them in our garage in the first place.
Are you with me?
We also need to put Miss Flopsy and her eggpile down on the ground in a protected place so that when (if) those babies hatch they won't tumble off the nest and down to the ground where snakes and coons can get at them.
Ah Jeez. As if I didn't have enough to worry about already.
We were discussing last night what we're going to do with all of the resultant roosters we may be getting. My theory is we let them be pets and see what happens. Seems to me that if Elvis doesn't kill them out of some fierce, biological urge then we can just let them be and we'll feed them and let them run around with the others. BUT, if they start getting mean as roosters sometimes do, I will have no qualms about asking Mr. Moon to cut their heads off.
That's just the way it is.
So- if they're sweet, they can hang out.
If they're mean and go after us and the kids, OFF WITH THEIR HEADS AND INTO THE STEWPOT! I myself could never cut a chicken's head off unless I was already weakened and yet strengthened by starvation but I don't mind letting Mr. Moon doing the dirty work.
Well, that's the theory and plan at this point.
And we all know how well plans go and how often theories prove out.
Today I am going to work on the theory that staying busy is staying sane. Syd was talking about this in a recent post. I don't know if it's really true but I do know that when I am feeling the way I am, which is anxious and low, it sure doesn't help to sit around. I need to either be moving or asleep. One or the other. If I try to sit for any length of time, I find myself jiggling my legs until whatever floor I'm sitting on is bouncing up and down and people are looking at me strangely.
Not that there's any people around here to speak of but you know what I mean.
I'm not much good as a carpenter but I am pretty okay at doing mindless gardening and branch-removal in the yard. I should go down Main Street and pick up trash because it is getting extremely nasty but I JUST DON'T CARE ANY MORE. Okay. I care a little bit but not enough do anything about it. Fucking trashy people are just fucking trashy people and short of cutting their arms off, I'm not sure what can be done as to a permanent resolution and even if you cut their arms off they'd probably spit their trash onto the side of the road with their mouths so there you go.
And right now, I just don't have the goodness-of-heart to be the one person in this whole damn community who cares enough to do anything about this situation. No. I do not. I can just see myself getting snake-bit in the overgrown roadside while reaching for a damn Ding-Dong wrapper. Fuck it.
And please do not suggest I go get one of those reacher-grabber things. Maybe Jefferson County could buy me one and an orange vest too. And maybe there will be snow tonight.
Here's a nice thing to report about our community though- the trailer that I used to bitch about regularly where EXTREMELY trashy people lived is now inhabited by non-trashy people who have cleaned up that yard and have giant tomatoes growing in pots and a little patio area and some nice little landscaping plants and I approve highly. Their neighbors, however, with the feral dogs in the yard are just as trashy as they ever were and their place is an eyesore. The chickens they used to keep have mostly disappeared and that hurts my heart. I feel quite sure that they ate chicken for a month.
Anyway, okay, the babies have now been put into their new facility. Mr. Moon did a few repairs to the old one and we moved it into the coop and the hardest part was catching the babies in their little coop and transporting them to the new one. That little one that escaped yesterday escaped again today and she ran into the woods but then ran back into the yard again and straight to some of my hens who did not know what to think. They stretched their feathers and turned a bit sideways as they do when confronted with something new.
Alien! Alien! yet...infant.
We caught her and put her in with the others. My god, these chickens love to run. But for now, they are tucked up safely in the new coop.
I don't dare raise the lid up to take their picture because someone will fly out and they can get through the wire in the big coop without a thought or any effort at all and next thing I know, I'll be smashing through the cobwebs in the woods and chasing them down the railroad tracks.
Here's Elvis, trying to figure out what in hell is going on around here today.
Mr. Moon swears he's going to take Elvis to the fair next year. I say NO but he says he's going to do it anyway. Unless the desire to do so passes between then and now.
I hope it does. Elvis is not a display chicken. He is the Husband To The Sister-Wives, Protector Of All.
The mosquitoes are out like crazy, I need to add cleaning the chicken coop to my list of chores today which will involve rakes and the wheelbarrow and gloves and I might as well go put on my overalls, my big-girl pants, as it were, spray down with mosquito repellant and get started.
Lily just called and they're coming out later. Owen is about to die to come to see his Mer-Mer and his Bop. Or at least, to play at our house. Who wouldn't want to play at this house? It's like the damn zoo and the farm and the toy store and a restaurant all in one. And the jungle. So I need to get busy before they get here. I am very, very glad they're coming. I miss my boys and you know that's true.
Here are two pictures Lily sent me.
As you can see, Owen is taking a great interest in his younger brother and Gibson is rather fascinated with Owen. The other night when we were babysitting, if Gibson began to cry, Owen would immediately come to him and put his arms around him and say, "Don't cry, baby. Don't worry."
So. A chicken and children Saturday.
As the Great Blues Singer Eddie Kirkland (may he rest in peace) said to me one time when he was told that I was pregnant, "Ain't nuttin' wrong with dat."
I can't believe how much Owen has grown in eight months. I mean- really? Eight months ago he was to be commended for his ability to find the tit. And pee and poop. And oh, you know, breathe.
And here he is, less than a year later, sitting up, pulling up, crawling, climbing, chortling, laughing, holding out his arms for who and what he wants, flirting, singing his Owen song, eating real food, and driving a tractor.
Okay. He's not really driving a tractor yet. I just wanted to know if you were paying attention.
But since today was a bit of a special day, I took a lot of pictures. And that would be different from every other day how? Oh hell. I don't know. But anyway, here he is, doing cute things and making cute faces and being an eight-month old boy which hardly seems possible. But here's the proof.
Lily's contest thing has the theme of "behind bars" this week. This was the best I could do. He had a good time posing. The requisite Owen and Elvis stare down picture. And you have to be brave to stare that rooster down.
We were sharing fruit with the chickens and Miss Penny REALLY wanted that fruit. She saw some go into Owen's mouth and she was trying to figure out how to get it back out. I swear.
I know. This is almost sickeningly sweet. He's the one who pulled that sheet up over himself. Snuggle Fabric Softener- give me a call. Or better yet- Seventh Generation. Y'all are woefully lacking in a cute mascot.
Just...a precious baby.
He addresses the masses. Of chickens. I think he is blessing their hearts.
This is Owen trying to see me around the camera. This expression is SO Owen.
In the bathtub getting all the strawberry/melon/grape juice off him.
And to get some perspective- this is what he looked like eight months ago:
Ah well. When you consider that nine months before that picture was taken he was two-cells big, it's not THAT amazing.
Except that it all is.
And the most amazing part of the whole dang miracle of it is the way he's managed to capture my heart. They say that babies teethe on your heart and I think that's true. He's gnawed on mine so thoroughly that he's softened it up to the point of ridiculousness. To the point where whatever that boy wants, he gets from his grandmother. And THAT, my sweeties, is why grandchildren are so damn spoiled by their grandparents. It's our teethed-on soft hearts.
Some days when Owen comes over he has a sort of Dennis The Menace hairdo going on. One morning it was quite pronounced and I asked his daddy who'd done his hair. "Pillow and pillow," he told me in his dry, humorous way. Today that little tuft was sticking up and although it wasn't the faux-hawk he sometimes sports, it was cute. Everything about Owen is cute to me. I was talking to Kathleen this morning about that brain-study woman and Kathleen and I decided that surely there are pheromones which make us good grandmothers. I can't really come up with any other biological explanation for why I am so insanely in love with this small boy. I mean sure, he's cute. But hell- so are most babies. Okay, okay. ALL babies are cute. But in my secret heart-of-hearts, I am thoroughly convinced that Owen is the cutest baby of all times ever in the universe. And I know that logically, this is probably not true. Maybe. But logic has not one fucking thing to do with how I feel about my grandson. The funny thing is is that before he was born, I was a tiny bit afraid that I might not feel the way about a grandchild that everyone said you would feel. I mean- didn't I just spend the last thirty-something years raising my own children? Haven't I been raising children since my baby brother was born when I was thirteen? Hadn't I changed my share of diapers, wiped my share of poopy butts and snotty noses? Hadn't I just achieved a measure of time that was mine and mine alone? Hadn't I?
And I was worried. What if I was one of those grandmothers? The kind that is quite content to see the child once in awhile, clean and diapered and fed and then when one of those situations reveres itself is quite happy to hand the child back to its rightful owners. The kind that when asked to babysit always has something else to do.
But one thing really gave me a feeling that maybe I was worrying too much about something that wasn't bound to happen and that one thing was the word that a lot of African-Americans call their grandchildren by which is simply, Grands. And great-grandchildren are, of course, Great-Grands. I mean- come on. If grandchildren weren't the best thing since sliced bread, why would they be referred to as grands? And why would those grandparents smile that smile when they said the word?
I kept that thought in my heart and then, when Owen was born after so many hours of brave and strong work by his mama and such loving and constant support by his daddy, I knew that Grand was the perfect name for these children-of-our-children and every day I am made more aware of that fact.
Owen is just grand. Everything he does is grand. Whether he is wiggling like a monkey trying to get off the bed while I change his diaper or he is singing his Owen song with a voice as loud and deep as an opera singer's or whether he is laying his full weight against me with sleepiness, or whether he is scooting across the kitchen to open a different cabinet or whether he is studying a chicken closely to see what makes it tick- well, it doesn't matter. Whatever he does seems perfectly grand to me.
A grand-child is perfectly named. Damn. Who would have guessed?
And all of this makes me wonder- will Owen feel that I too, am grand? And his other grandmother and his grandfather? Will he?
When I knew that I was going to be helping take care of Owen when Lily went back to work, I wondered and worried (yeah- I do both of those way too much- I know) about how I would be able to take care of a baby without the boob. Nursing had been such a huge part of my own baby-raising. How could I comfort and give a child what he needed without lactating? Seriously. I was completely baffled and concerned about this very issue. But you know what? That too, has been just fine. There is this thing they invented called a bottle? Have you heard of that? And Lily, bless her heart, is still pumping, still bringing me those bags of holy mother's milk. And when there's not enough of that, I make him formula and he is thriving! He knows that he gets titty from Mama and no one else and that is part of the bond he has with his mother which he can have with no one else.
But you know what? Even without having the tit for him, I can tell that Owen loves me. Or, at least seems to be really happy when he sees me. If he does love me, it's because I so obviously love him and so obviously think he's grand. He can tell I think that. Of that I have no doubt. And the thing about being a grandparent is that the child doesn't HAVE to love you. You are not mama, you are not papa. You are this other person and the baby's life does not depend on you. And okay, sure, I do everything in the world to make him happy every moment we're together to the point where Mr. Moon is deadly afraid that when he's old enough to ask for things, I 'm going to spend all of our retirement funds on Fischer Price stuff. When he was telling me this the other day I said, "Really? And who's going to be buying him cars before he can even drive?" Mr. Moon ducked his head and said, "Me."
And we laughed because you know what? It's just simply fucking GRAND! ALL of it! And in fact, if I were Queen of the Universe, I would rename grandchildren to call them Grandloves. And that's what they could call grandparents, too. Grandloves. Because it is all just so grand in every bit of the slightly old-fashioned, formal usage of the word, this relationship that begins to form when your son or your daughter has a child of his or her own and lets you hold them for the first time.
And isn't that wonderful? The fact that there are people who love you so much they would die for you and they're not even your parents? That after all those years of raising their own babies they want nothing more than to change your poopy diaper because they think you're so damn cute?
It was baby-world for me today. I had Owen for a few hours this morning after the Great Bat Escapade and Lily couldn't wait to show me his new trick. He can sit up. Sort of. He wobbles and leans but he is getting there.
So many muscles it takes to sit up straight! So much that boy has learned and accomplished in four months. And the amazing thing is- we all do this! I did it, you did it, your children do it and yet, even though that's what people do when they are babies, each and every new accomplishment is reason for celebration. As Lily said when Owen got those first two teeth, "I had nothing to do with it but I sure am proud." I had even less to do with it, but I was still proud too.
Owen was in a good mood today. We giggled and played and went to the post office and looked at the chickens and had happy-baby-time when I changed his diaper. Owen loves nothing more than having you right there in his face, chuckling and tickling, running his legs and making him patty-cake by holding his little arms. Actually, his not-so-little arms. The boy is beginning to chunk out. He is STURDY! And so strong. He is four-months old. He is not an infant by any means. He can scoot in his walker and today I had to remove some dried palm fronds because he got to them and began to pull them out of their vase.
And as we all know, life will never be the same.
I am thinking I might have to buy a vacuum cleaner, which hurts my heart. Or perhaps I just need to sweep and mop more. I don't know. No matter what, the black dirt of Lloyd is going to make its way into my grandson's clothes and skin as yet another child crawls across the wide pine boards of these floors. If you put him on his belly, he desperately wants to move. He can get his butt up in the air and he can get his head up in the air, but not both at the same time. He will figure it out soon, though. This is a boy who wants to GO!
I took Owen back to his mama in the early afternoon as she was only working a short day. And I stayed because Billy was going to bring Waylon over for Lily to take care of for a few hours until Shayla got off work. Shayla has recently had to go back to school teaching which, up until Waylon was born, was the main reason that woman got up in the morning. She is THAT teacher. The one who changed your life. She works at school where the population is mostly what we might politically and correctly call something politically correct but which are, in fact, poor kids who may or may not have one parent raising them, and hardly any of them have two. And then when she had Waylon, every bit of that maternal, nurturing heart of hers turned inside out and she became one of those mothers who can't bear to be as far away as the next room from her baby. So going back to work has been devastatingly hard for her but the simple fact of the matter is, they cannot live on Billy's salary alone and so... Back to work she has gone. And it is killing her.
So anyway, Billy dropped off Waylon, taking him out of his car seat where he was sleeping to snuggle him before he left to go to his work, because he is one of those daddies who lives and breathes his baby and then Lily and I had such fun with those two boys. I held Waylon and Lily held Owen and Owen was almost desperate to get his hands on Waylon. He looked like a zombie, his little arms stretched out in front of him to touch Waylon, to see what he felt like, to rip his face off. I often feel like Owen wants to rip MY face off the way he grabs and pulls on my mouth, his fingers hooked into it. Oh. It was a fun baby-time with those two boys whom I love. Waylon laughed at me and talked to me and when he got fussy I gave him a bottle of his mama's milk, snuggled down next to me and I felt like I'd been given another gift, his big eyes studying my face while Lily nursed Owen.
When Shayla got to the house after work he was asleep in the swing. "Go ahead," I told her. "Pick him up. He's your baby." And she did, holding him close to her and I almost cried at the way she looked as she held him. Like a mama welcoming her Marine back from Iraq, like a mama holding the child she had missed all day so much that she thought she'd die.
Waylon is fine but I am worried about Shayla. Lily was the same way when she had to go back to work. She knew that her son would be okay in my care, in his daddy's care, but that wasn't the issue. The issue was- would the mama survive?
And so far, Lily has survived just fine. She leaves her boy with me and she knows he's going to be all right. "Have fun with your crazy chicken grandmaw," she says as leaves. And she's okay. And every day I tell her, "Thank-you for trusting your boy with me." And every day, I mean that. Every day I see him growing. Fatter, stronger, funnier, and more beautiful. I SEE that. I am her eyes when she is not there. I am her arms when she can not hold him. I am her mother and I love her son in ways that are as mysterious and important as anything on earth.
And I want that for Shayla, too. That peace which comes from knowing that her son is being loved and seen for who and what he is while she is earning a living. While she is tending to other children with her great, giant, loving heart.
All babies deserve this. Your babies, my babies, their babies.
To be held and loved and comforted and encouraged and laughed at and talked to and nurtured. And I am so grateful to be a part of Owen's life and be that for him. And for Waylon's, too, when I can.
"Do you know how much I love you?" I tell my boy when I change his diaper. And then he pees on me and I laugh and when I wash his diapers I am in complete and utter disbelief that yes, again, I am washing baby pee-pee diapers. My hands and fingers know how to put those diapers on like you wouldn't believe. Diaper-changing is a dance my hands know how to do. I imagine that on my dying bed, you could hand me a baby and my old, arthritic hands would know how to fold and wrap the diaper around that baby and would know how to tickle his tummy and make him laugh.
And I would laugh too. And I hope that Lily and Shayla know how much joy their babies bring me. How every time their babies smile at me, my heart beats with contentment.
Crazy chicken grandma.
I can't think of anything I'd rather be.
I can't think of anything else I was meant to be. Watching the wheels go round and round, as John Lennon said when his son was a baby. I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go round and I hold out my arms and grab a baby, pull him towards me, feel joy that I never knew I'd feel again.
Thank-you, Lily. Thank-you, Shayla. You loving mamas who have given this old mama something to do with her dancing hands. Babies to love with her beating heart.
