grandkids

Time to finish my belated trip account to Salt Lake in February, my daughters graduation in May and other summer travel and travails. LOL

FEBRUARY –

I’m spending time with the grand and great grands and a son right now and what a ride it’s been. I visit them from time to time but not for as long as this trip has been. In part it is (was) because my son who lives with my grand daughter Becca (his niece), had an unusual seizure and was ill for awhile. With all that she does, he was in no position to help her with their usual routine. Caring for him and everything else she does was really more than the poor girl could take on alone as you will see as this story progresses.

Normally, I wouldn’t have been there at all as I was scheduled to see them in a May for my other daughter, her aunt’s graduation. More on that in the sequel.

While I’m there I see that he is on the mend. Still weak but better. Apparently his new medication compounded with two jobs triggered something.

After a few days, he and my granddaughter are dancing to some MTV video.

Ian an Becca

It may seem odd, but these two are like brother and sister as their ages are fairly close. This was their form of exercise and they had a hard time keeping up with the dancers in the video.

Each morning begins with feeding 5 dogs (the three puppies are fed by mommy) followed by putting them out to do their business, yes there’s a grand total of eight!

Three labs, one long hair Chihuahua and a Pom-chi with three puppies. The sweet dog with the grey muzzle has since passed away.

Luna

My hubby and I still have a dog and cat. Like us they are getting old but we hope they go before either of us does. For two reasons: One: the thought of them having to be traumatized by new owners at their old age would be devastating to them. As it is we left them with a relative for a week and although they did well, they were clingy when we returned. It would be akin to abandoning a child or putting them up for adoption. Two: We want to travel and do other things once my hubby retires and you just can’t take them everywhere, period. At 16, Chloe doesn’t travel well anymore anyway.

THE ROUTINE:

Besides the dogs, we had the kids, well there are only two, who have to be fed and dressed or made sure they are appropriately attired for school. Ally kept donning on her princess or ballerina clothes and combing her hair amid loud protestations was a fete in itself, not to mention a significant amount of cajoling to even get them to leave the house. Most of that was my fault, as staying at home to be with “Grandma Jo” was their preferred choice. So, we compromised and Grandma Jo went to school for Grandparents day!

(BIG MISTAKE!!! You do know that small children are petri dishes of bacteria, right? It hit me when I got home and lasted a TWO months!!)

I silently praise God that those days of hustling kids off to school are done, while at the same time, periodic moments of nostalgia with my kids would swoosh over me, remembering those days. I am sure many a mom reminisces the good times, the hugs and story time.

THURSDAYS –

Then there are Thursdays, Becca calls it the trifecta schedule.

Off to ballet for Ally while Kash takes guitar lessons across the street. While they are in their classes, mommy runs to McDonald’s to grab “dinner” before H.O.C.K.E.Y!!!

A week into my visit, it snowed. I leave the following Friday, so I was a bit anxious. Is it going to do it again? I’m not used to driving in that white stuff anymore and visions of me sliding all over the highway haunt my sleep.

snow covered car

Yikes!

WORK

My grand daughter lost some days of work when Ian was ill but tonight she had a late shift, so before she leaves I want to clear the driveway for her. Kash helped for all of a minute pushing snow around before he finally sat on a drift and watched grandma do the work. In all fairness, a shovel full of snow is quite heavy for a seven year old.

In the meantime, Becca wasn’t looking forward to work that day. She works at a high end hotel Spa as a massage therapist. Flights had been cancelled the previous day due to the “storm”, which meant they would be busy. She didn’t mind busy, but she noticed her two last appointments were male and she groaned. I immediately got the picture. She’s a beautiful girl so I wondered and asked if it happened often that she was propositioned and she said “it happens”. She is a lovely girl, so I wasn’t surprised. Becca

Unfortunately, there is still the stigma that goes with her job. Massages at this hotel are pricey and she has served many luminaries during their stay. However, these guests on her schedule were not stars or anyone whose names she recognized. As it turns out, it generally went fine. One gentleman asked her if she dated and she said, “No”, which may have been a veiled invite, but it was not obviously so. Thanks to all the “Me Too” media coverage of sexual harassment, it has been much better, she says. The second client did not ask her anything so personal but was by nature just plain “obnoxious”. My granddaughter is her own person and quite forthright, only once has she had to turn a client in for misbehaving. Apparently, he had overstepped his bounds with one of the other girls before and she was afraid to say anything. Not Becca. Fortunately the hotel backs their staff to the point of even banning some very wealthy repeat customers that are discourteous to their staff. Her co-workers are both male and female and all are treated with equal consideration.

Shortly after I left, besides me getting deathly ill, the kids too got sick.

Before graduation, Ally fell off the trampoline and broke her leg. The trampoline does have a surround netting, so it was unclear what happened.

For a child, whose bones are referred to as “green”, hers was a clean break (?) and such that it required surgery and pins placed. It was, as you can well imagine, quite traumatic.

I asked her if she’d be getting on the trampoline again. She said, ” next time, (I guessed that was a yes) I will remember to zip it up better”. Apparently, she hadn’t zipped it all the way up and fell out the only spot open. She just turned 5.

To be continued…

I live far from my family and keep these links open to stay in touch with them, or so I tell myself but even so, I sometimes wonder why.

I wonder why I really want to see my family members in their various morphing stages when after reading some of their comments, I’m thinking maybe I’d prefer to disown them altogether and wonder how I can.

Several years ago when I first logged onto social media, I thought it would be a great way to keep in touch outside of handwriting them a letter. We are several states away and for awhile it was marvelous. I got to see what they liked and we’d talk and it was great. Then, things changed. I’d comment on some of their pics and controversial extrapolations, but found myself crossing swords with them and that’s fine, it was friendly. It wasn’t however, something I wanted to do on social media. I’m an eye to eye sort of debater, I want to look you in the eye when we disagree. You can see far more that way than by words alone. As it is, I unfriended grandson #2 because it was just too much. Every other word began with F—!

When grandson #1 begins postulating on various topics be they political, moral or religious, which he often does, I wondered how at the ripe old age of 16, he thought he could be an authority on anything. Unfortunately, the child is gifted with high intelligence and has a knack for being eloquently verbose.

Today, he legally grows Marijuana, yet I can see him one day … becoming the president of a large pharmaceutical.

His younger brother on the other hand may be singing the same tunes only far more discreetly. He seems responsible and polite and he’s not afraid of hard work.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — Cuttin’ wood in Moab

He’s a diplomat. He seems to pretty much say what you expect him to, in other words he has all the makings of and could become a politician. Perhaps he’s better equipped to be president because you really don’t know what’s going on in this kids head. At the rate this country is going, I suppose he’d probably do a better job.

Will they grow up and turn out alright? Perhaps, but the transition is too painful to watch. Look at all the ex hippies that are heading major corporations now. Some actually became president and some are teaching our kids.

I will say this. When I talk to them (the grandkids) one on one and in person, they seem like very nice kids, but on social media… Yikes!

Their younger two siblings are so far doing fine. My grand daughter has begun filming her own little five minute shorts. Her slightly older brother is shy and seems to be staying out of harms way. He see’s his older brothers and seems to be taking a lesson on how not to be. One, of course, never knows until they are all grown.

The same for my grand daughters. On social media, for awhile there, they for all appearances appeared like hussies! I know, the word is dated but it fits. Their pictures all came across as provocative, impudent and superficial. In other words slutty. I wondered then, do I even want to know what they’re all really doing?

Then, my youngest second grand daughter, an unwed mother, does this twerking thing in front of a couple of boys, shows pictures and videos of herself in various situations and wonders why she keeps getting treated badly. She has no clue? One day I hope she will wise up. I hate seeing her hurting, she’s truly a good kid.

Her older sister, still posts a ton of pictures but does them beautifully.

She’s become a responsible mom and many of her shots are well done.

As for the next cycle of grand kids, who knows? I think they will be fine. For some reason, my first two were very lenient because they said I was too strict.

My son, the former Marine does not feel the same way. His children so far are doing fine, but they are still young.

As for me and my own social media presence. I try to keep it simple. I “like” and “share” what I find interesting. I try to avoid politics because, first of all, IF you judged my grand kids by what they post, you might wonder about them, so you can’t believe all that you see or read about a person by what is posted.

Social media can be manipulated way too much and too easily that is for certain.

Am I for Trump or Hillary? I won’t say. Both fall short tremendously and both come across as idiots no matter how you slice it.

I remember as a child, I wanted to read the Bible but really didn’t know how to go about doing it, so I decided one day to just close my eyes, open the book and let my little hand point a finger to the page or verse I’d start at. In this way I’d be letting “God” direct where I would begin. (That’s not how I intend to vote, but I did give it some thought). Eeek!

Whatever happens at this point, in any event, is in God’s hands anyway. I do believe that He is in control and will determine the outcome whether we think it’s right or wrong. I think everyone in this universe has his/her part to play and whatever “they” do is predestined for a time to work out His ultimate plan. Like people in the past, we will probably never see the end result of that plan, but it never hurts to pray for something better.