Well, we made it past another Hallmark Holiday. Or, as a friend said, "What's the name of that big card company?" The boy grands have not picked up their e-valentines. The girl grand loved the e-tine and sent one back of herself, singing "Happy Valentine's Day" To the tune of "Happy Birthday". She has a great, stand up and shout it out voice, which I envy. She's also a family gal, thanks to her mother.
It's probable that One and Two are thought of by the other grandparents as family kids. They do spend every holiday with their mother's parents and sibling and the sibling's scary son. Said sibling - lets call her Elle - heard her biological clock thundering about ten years ago and hooked up with a guy she'd known in high school. It looked like, sorta like, love for awhile. He was living and working in CA, she in AZ but Southwest made the back-and-forth an easy hop, so they carried on for awhile. And Elle got pregnant, probably on a visit to CA that coincided with One's 7th birthday party.
It was all down hill from there. Elle was happy in AZ and didn't want to leave. But the sperm donor's life was in CA and he couldn't leave and have a job. She agreed to move and then dragged her feet. Then they broke up. Then the baby was born two months early. And now he has every learning disability and personality disorder you can imagine. He got kicked out of first grade.
One and Two's mother kind of likes this. She herself is a second child, always running to catch up. Elle was always (until her kid was born) much more adventurous and interesting. Now, Elle has apparently accepted her second-class-citizen status, in return for the crumbs from her younger sister's table. And the kid probably needs daily therapy. She who is rigid, rockbound and self-righteous WINS!
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Breaking Away
Dear I(One) and II (Two): What happens when you defy your mother? Does she melt, like the Wicked Witch of the whichever? Does she cry? Pout? Rage at you? Get Ultra Rational and use that "you're a simpleton but I'll set you straight" voice of hers until your ears bleed and you give up?
Because she's not going to like everything you do, you know. and she is going to find out - or try like hell. She views you as her property. Even though she has told lawyers, judges, mediators and counselors that she would never force her boys to do anything they didn't want to do, that's not really true, is it? The summers you didn't want to do junior lifeguards anymore, One. Screwing up your perspective on soccer, which you really love, Two, by confusing you about tryouts for the big kids' team, so you didn't give it your best shot and didn't get chosen for the team. And of course she never makes you go to the dentist or the doctor or to visit your ferrety little cousin when you'd rather go to your best friend's house and ride bikes. And she wouldn't think of making you do chores, would she? But I guess if you objected, said you didn't want to do any of those onerous tasks, she'd tell you that you obviously didn't know what you wanted. Too bad she couldn't use the same line of reasoning when it came to your visits with your father.
Two, I've had the feeling, over the years, that you'd be pleased to have a visiting relationship with your father. It's rumored that you have said as much to your best friend and his father, but acknowledged that your mother and brother would kill you if you tried. I know they're both bigger than you are, but that won't always be the case. There is such a thing as a telephone - in fact, I think you have one of your very own. You wouldn't even have to call, just text, if your mother monitors your phone contacts. Fact? She wouldn't kill you. You're half of her meal ticket.
Because she's not going to like everything you do, you know. and she is going to find out - or try like hell. She views you as her property. Even though she has told lawyers, judges, mediators and counselors that she would never force her boys to do anything they didn't want to do, that's not really true, is it? The summers you didn't want to do junior lifeguards anymore, One. Screwing up your perspective on soccer, which you really love, Two, by confusing you about tryouts for the big kids' team, so you didn't give it your best shot and didn't get chosen for the team. And of course she never makes you go to the dentist or the doctor or to visit your ferrety little cousin when you'd rather go to your best friend's house and ride bikes. And she wouldn't think of making you do chores, would she? But I guess if you objected, said you didn't want to do any of those onerous tasks, she'd tell you that you obviously didn't know what you wanted. Too bad she couldn't use the same line of reasoning when it came to your visits with your father.
Two, I've had the feeling, over the years, that you'd be pleased to have a visiting relationship with your father. It's rumored that you have said as much to your best friend and his father, but acknowledged that your mother and brother would kill you if you tried. I know they're both bigger than you are, but that won't always be the case. There is such a thing as a telephone - in fact, I think you have one of your very own. You wouldn't even have to call, just text, if your mother monitors your phone contacts. Fact? She wouldn't kill you. You're half of her meal ticket.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
The Wheels On The Bus
Dear Grandboys: Have you ever seen pictures of your dad as a mountain boy in Colorado? How about as a gypsy, traveling in a school bus? Did you know he and his pals used to ride their bikes from here all the way across the Golden Gate Bridge and out to Ft. Cronkhite and all the way back. They were riding small bikes with small wheels and no gears. There are lots of hills to negotiate in the 8 or so miles from here to the Bridge. Could you guys do that?
Your dad was six when we lived in Colorado. We had a two room house, no electricity, no running water, heated with wood and coal. The outhouse stood at the top of a hill and blew over once in a high wind. Kids had to walk into the wind coming heavy down the Great Divide in order to get to the school bus stop. Once when they missed the bus and were getting a ride to school, thirteen miles away, the truck they were traveling in slid off the road into a meadow buried under two feet of snow.
Your dad got pretty good with an axe, while we were living there. He didn't use the big one - it was too heavy and the handle was almost as long as your dad. He split the kindling with the rig axe (also a hammer). We all took one shower a week, at a neighbor's house. We took the laundry to Boulder every week, when we shopped for food. Your dad and I spent some quality time with a dentist in Boulder and always stopped at the last gas station before heading up the canyon. Gas there cost 26 cents a gallon. We also treated ourselves to Vernor's ginger ale and hot pepper jack cheese: all we could handle with our novocained mouths. The cheese could melt on our tongues.
We traveled for two months in the school bus, navigating back to California from the East, stopping wherever there was someone to visit or something to see. Your dad and your aunt had beds that turned into diner-style booths during the daytime. Good places to write in your journal, do your math problems, eat your sandwich, play a few games of solitaire. The kids kept their toys and gear under the seats. We didn't stop in Colorado on the way back to California because it started to snow while we were in Taos and it would have meant buying snow tires for the bus. We had already had a couple blow outs and bought some retreads. Money was dwindling fast, so we high-tailed it to California.
We drove a lot, staying ahead of the snow and stopped for the night in the high desert, shortly after crossing the state line. By early afternoon the next day, we were rolling up our pants legs and wading in the Pacific Ocean. Everybody went a little nuts, including the dogs. Sand under our feet again! We were home. Sort of.
I hope you do see those pictures, sometime. It won't take long. There aren't very many of them and they're fraying and falling apart. I hope I'm the one looking at them with you.
Your dad was six when we lived in Colorado. We had a two room house, no electricity, no running water, heated with wood and coal. The outhouse stood at the top of a hill and blew over once in a high wind. Kids had to walk into the wind coming heavy down the Great Divide in order to get to the school bus stop. Once when they missed the bus and were getting a ride to school, thirteen miles away, the truck they were traveling in slid off the road into a meadow buried under two feet of snow.
Your dad got pretty good with an axe, while we were living there. He didn't use the big one - it was too heavy and the handle was almost as long as your dad. He split the kindling with the rig axe (also a hammer). We all took one shower a week, at a neighbor's house. We took the laundry to Boulder every week, when we shopped for food. Your dad and I spent some quality time with a dentist in Boulder and always stopped at the last gas station before heading up the canyon. Gas there cost 26 cents a gallon. We also treated ourselves to Vernor's ginger ale and hot pepper jack cheese: all we could handle with our novocained mouths. The cheese could melt on our tongues.
We traveled for two months in the school bus, navigating back to California from the East, stopping wherever there was someone to visit or something to see. Your dad and your aunt had beds that turned into diner-style booths during the daytime. Good places to write in your journal, do your math problems, eat your sandwich, play a few games of solitaire. The kids kept their toys and gear under the seats. We didn't stop in Colorado on the way back to California because it started to snow while we were in Taos and it would have meant buying snow tires for the bus. We had already had a couple blow outs and bought some retreads. Money was dwindling fast, so we high-tailed it to California.
We drove a lot, staying ahead of the snow and stopped for the night in the high desert, shortly after crossing the state line. By early afternoon the next day, we were rolling up our pants legs and wading in the Pacific Ocean. Everybody went a little nuts, including the dogs. Sand under our feet again! We were home. Sort of.
I hope you do see those pictures, sometime. It won't take long. There aren't very many of them and they're fraying and falling apart. I hope I'm the one looking at them with you.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Dear Grandboy: I want you to know that my mother - your great-grandmother, whom your mother taught you to call "Great-grandmother Jean", truly thought you were the best kid on the planet. She liked your bright eyes and your smile and your enthusiasm and your singing voice. In her eyes, you could do no wrong.
I think about her a lot when holidays are coming, even if they are holidays created by merchandisers to sell more merchandise. My mother was an enthusiastic holiday celebrant. She never forgot to send cards and she never sent them late. I was cruising Valentine displays today, reminded again that I have no idea what entertains and/or pleases your fifteen year old self. I'm fairly certain you wouldn't get a kick out of a Barbie valentine or a Disney Princess valentine. You're clearly too old for Thomas Train. Candy is usually safe, but I don't even know whether you like chocolate.And your mother would throw it away, no doubt, as she has done with everything else that has been sent.
I'll probably do what I've done for the past several years: send e-tines to you and your brother. I know you delete them without opening them because I never get notice that the valentines have been received.If you sent me a valentine, I'd open it.
Although it's not very clear, I think you and I are estranged because your mother thinks I was critical of her at the time she and your father separated. She circulated an e-mail to your father's family members, including me, expressing her intention to make sure that we all remained in touch. Your grandmother Kay, the school teacher, wrote back, commenting that it had been her experience that the children of divorce coped much better when the parents worked cooperatively to ensure the children's safe passage. Since that had also been my experience, as a divorce attorney, I agreed with Kay, and expressed that to your mother. I have never heard from her directly since then. I did hear from your father, as did Kay, that what we had written had upset your mother and we were not to write to her again. So I haven't.
I think about her a lot when holidays are coming, even if they are holidays created by merchandisers to sell more merchandise. My mother was an enthusiastic holiday celebrant. She never forgot to send cards and she never sent them late. I was cruising Valentine displays today, reminded again that I have no idea what entertains and/or pleases your fifteen year old self. I'm fairly certain you wouldn't get a kick out of a Barbie valentine or a Disney Princess valentine. You're clearly too old for Thomas Train. Candy is usually safe, but I don't even know whether you like chocolate.And your mother would throw it away, no doubt, as she has done with everything else that has been sent.
I'll probably do what I've done for the past several years: send e-tines to you and your brother. I know you delete them without opening them because I never get notice that the valentines have been received.If you sent me a valentine, I'd open it.
Although it's not very clear, I think you and I are estranged because your mother thinks I was critical of her at the time she and your father separated. She circulated an e-mail to your father's family members, including me, expressing her intention to make sure that we all remained in touch. Your grandmother Kay, the school teacher, wrote back, commenting that it had been her experience that the children of divorce coped much better when the parents worked cooperatively to ensure the children's safe passage. Since that had also been my experience, as a divorce attorney, I agreed with Kay, and expressed that to your mother. I have never heard from her directly since then. I did hear from your father, as did Kay, that what we had written had upset your mother and we were not to write to her again. So I haven't.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Put It In Writing
This year may shape up to be my year of letters. Remember letters? Writing on paper, fold, put in envelope, seal, stamp, hippity hop to the letter box. After awhile, back by mail comes a response, or anyway an acknowledgment.
That was part of what was fun about letters. Several days elapsed between when you put pen to paper and when the recipient actually got to read what you had written. By the time an answering letter materialized, you may have forgotten what exactly you had felt so passionately about on the day of your writing. Or your respondent has shied away from addressing whatever issues you raised, necessitating another attempt to communicate the same information so as to elicit a direct response. And, in between letters, you could re-read the old ones. And you could keep them: in a desk drawer, in a shoebox, tied up with ribbon or rubber bands, wrapped in a silk scarf, hidden under a rug in the closet - the possibilities were almost infinite.
As my father used to pithily remark, "You gotta write 'em to get 'em". So, I will. I'll write 'em. I may not send 'em. Some of the people I may wish to address are no longer walking among us. Some of the people I may wish to address would instantly discard anything that came from me, including a birthday card with money enclosed. The following will not be sent.
Dear Poor Excuse for a Daughter-In-Law:
I hope you read Ann Lander's daughter's column in the paper today. Or maybe she's Abigail Van Buren's daughter or granddaughter but that probably doesn't matter so much. Today she wrote about just desserts for daughters-in-law who mistreat their mothers-in-law. It is simple and a little too perfect. What happens? Sonny boy marries a woman just like his darling Mom. Oops.
But you wouldn't recognize yourself as an abusive daughter-in-law. You never saw how mean and dismissive you were towards your mother, even as you followed in her dog rescuing foot steps. You never noticed how uncomfortable it made me and other members of my family (possibly even including my son, who stuck staunchly by you anyway) when you made the boys perform their stuff like little seals or when you spoke to them as though they were brain-damaged puppies.
I will write letters and save them for your sons, just in case they ever make a break for freedom. It appears that you have them convinced they can't live without you - or is it the other way around? You can't live without them? So it's unlikely that they will be encouraged to launch. You'll just turn the garage into a studio apartment and the three of you can hunker down in front of the gas fireplace with your veggie burgers and Tater Tots and play Wii sports.
You had a lot of promise, in those days you were cutting my son out of the herd and talking about becoming an environmental lawyer. Watching you sail through your masters program in economics, I figured you could do anything you put your mind to. That you were opinionated and self-righteous and very prickly in new situations seemed like assets, as you wended your way through a series of local government jobs. And even though my son didn't get why you insisted on that wedding dress with the nine mile train, the cliff top wedding amidst the succulents, the harpist for god's sake, it looked like love was a go, so fine.
When did it stop being a go? Why did he throw his wedding ring off a freeway overpass in LA? Something to do with your failure to honor your promise to join him at UCLA? After your previous failure to join him while he started med school at Syracuse? I didn't know until recently how hard you had fought to keep him from going to med school. All these years, I'd assumed you were the one promoting it. But then you hated Syracuse and wouldn't move there. And then you hated LA and wouldn't move there.
I guess I don't really care to know when love slipped out your door or how many people you thought might be better life mates for you than the one you had chosen. At the point when you told my son you didn't want to live in a loveless marriage, why didn't you do the honorable thing and negotiate separate existences that worked for everyone involved? Why did you insist that the boys take sides?
That was part of what was fun about letters. Several days elapsed between when you put pen to paper and when the recipient actually got to read what you had written. By the time an answering letter materialized, you may have forgotten what exactly you had felt so passionately about on the day of your writing. Or your respondent has shied away from addressing whatever issues you raised, necessitating another attempt to communicate the same information so as to elicit a direct response. And, in between letters, you could re-read the old ones. And you could keep them: in a desk drawer, in a shoebox, tied up with ribbon or rubber bands, wrapped in a silk scarf, hidden under a rug in the closet - the possibilities were almost infinite.
As my father used to pithily remark, "You gotta write 'em to get 'em". So, I will. I'll write 'em. I may not send 'em. Some of the people I may wish to address are no longer walking among us. Some of the people I may wish to address would instantly discard anything that came from me, including a birthday card with money enclosed. The following will not be sent.
Dear Poor Excuse for a Daughter-In-Law:
I hope you read Ann Lander's daughter's column in the paper today. Or maybe she's Abigail Van Buren's daughter or granddaughter but that probably doesn't matter so much. Today she wrote about just desserts for daughters-in-law who mistreat their mothers-in-law. It is simple and a little too perfect. What happens? Sonny boy marries a woman just like his darling Mom. Oops.
But you wouldn't recognize yourself as an abusive daughter-in-law. You never saw how mean and dismissive you were towards your mother, even as you followed in her dog rescuing foot steps. You never noticed how uncomfortable it made me and other members of my family (possibly even including my son, who stuck staunchly by you anyway) when you made the boys perform their stuff like little seals or when you spoke to them as though they were brain-damaged puppies.
I will write letters and save them for your sons, just in case they ever make a break for freedom. It appears that you have them convinced they can't live without you - or is it the other way around? You can't live without them? So it's unlikely that they will be encouraged to launch. You'll just turn the garage into a studio apartment and the three of you can hunker down in front of the gas fireplace with your veggie burgers and Tater Tots and play Wii sports.
You had a lot of promise, in those days you were cutting my son out of the herd and talking about becoming an environmental lawyer. Watching you sail through your masters program in economics, I figured you could do anything you put your mind to. That you were opinionated and self-righteous and very prickly in new situations seemed like assets, as you wended your way through a series of local government jobs. And even though my son didn't get why you insisted on that wedding dress with the nine mile train, the cliff top wedding amidst the succulents, the harpist for god's sake, it looked like love was a go, so fine.
When did it stop being a go? Why did he throw his wedding ring off a freeway overpass in LA? Something to do with your failure to honor your promise to join him at UCLA? After your previous failure to join him while he started med school at Syracuse? I didn't know until recently how hard you had fought to keep him from going to med school. All these years, I'd assumed you were the one promoting it. But then you hated Syracuse and wouldn't move there. And then you hated LA and wouldn't move there.
I guess I don't really care to know when love slipped out your door or how many people you thought might be better life mates for you than the one you had chosen. At the point when you told my son you didn't want to live in a loveless marriage, why didn't you do the honorable thing and negotiate separate existences that worked for everyone involved? Why did you insist that the boys take sides?
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Oh groan!
So, this was the mate's idea. We both had mothers who placed a high value on grammar. His mother went to Boston Latin for high school. My mother had school teachers for parents and was an entirely precocious, if socially inept, person. Anyway, the mate puns. Hence my blog title.
Of course, the rest of it is what we both have to acknowledge: I am a bad gramma. And evermore shall be so, sans doute. I have been so designated since the oldest grandboy was, maybe, 18 months, and I had barely seen him, despite our geographic proximity.My son called me up, to let me know how my negligent attention was perceived. I was not entirely chagrined but close. Grandboy's mother then thought up all sorts of ways that I could redeem myself and Participate With His Life, including giving him ice skating lessons as a Hannukah present.
Me, I like to ice skate. I'm more afraid of falling and whacking a body part into smithereens than I used to be, but I truly love that feeling of inhaling cold moisture and gliding on a hard surface. So sure, ice skate with a 2 year old where Kristi Yamaguchi (am I remembering that right?) practiced as a young suburbanite, heading for glory. Bring it on. Here's my check.
I got to go with Grandboy to the last of his four classes. We put on our skates and headed for the ice. He was wearing a helmet and a look of grim determination. The class was full of little races and rewards. Only two small girls had transcended the pull that ice exerts on ankles and were already on their way to Olympic couples tangoes. Everyone else, me included, needed a nap. Or a snack. Or both.
Would I have welcomed the chance to keep him for an evening or an overnight, to give his parents a break? Hard to say. That wasn't an option because the family lived right around the corner from the other grandparents, whose child minding services were always on offer.
Pretty soon, the family enlarged by another grandboy (II). Only this time, the mother fell into serious post-partum depression and then migraines. Fortunately, there was a nanny in place.She wasn't really as fond of II as she had been of Grandboy, so the new little guy spent his early life puzzled.
Every time I visited, I felt like I was walking on a mine field. Had the adults just been fighting? Were they putting the fight on hold for the whole length of my two-hour visit or would it erupt in furious little sports every time they had to speak? Was it my visit that provoked the fight? Really, how self-centered can I be? Surely there were other topics to fight about, since, increasingly, they didn't seem to agree on much.
The best times were when my son and I and the mate could take the boys to the beach, a mile from their house. There, they could run and roughhouse and tumble, dash in and out of the brutally cold water, peace out. Sitting in the sand, creating canals for the incoming tide, lets a body rest easy with other small bodies. Out of the house, away from Mom, the boys visibly relaxed and became goofy and jokey.
Then came the separation.
Of course, the rest of it is what we both have to acknowledge: I am a bad gramma. And evermore shall be so, sans doute. I have been so designated since the oldest grandboy was, maybe, 18 months, and I had barely seen him, despite our geographic proximity.My son called me up, to let me know how my negligent attention was perceived. I was not entirely chagrined but close. Grandboy's mother then thought up all sorts of ways that I could redeem myself and Participate With His Life, including giving him ice skating lessons as a Hannukah present.
Me, I like to ice skate. I'm more afraid of falling and whacking a body part into smithereens than I used to be, but I truly love that feeling of inhaling cold moisture and gliding on a hard surface. So sure, ice skate with a 2 year old where Kristi Yamaguchi (am I remembering that right?) practiced as a young suburbanite, heading for glory. Bring it on. Here's my check.
I got to go with Grandboy to the last of his four classes. We put on our skates and headed for the ice. He was wearing a helmet and a look of grim determination. The class was full of little races and rewards. Only two small girls had transcended the pull that ice exerts on ankles and were already on their way to Olympic couples tangoes. Everyone else, me included, needed a nap. Or a snack. Or both.
Would I have welcomed the chance to keep him for an evening or an overnight, to give his parents a break? Hard to say. That wasn't an option because the family lived right around the corner from the other grandparents, whose child minding services were always on offer.
Pretty soon, the family enlarged by another grandboy (II). Only this time, the mother fell into serious post-partum depression and then migraines. Fortunately, there was a nanny in place.She wasn't really as fond of II as she had been of Grandboy, so the new little guy spent his early life puzzled.
Every time I visited, I felt like I was walking on a mine field. Had the adults just been fighting? Were they putting the fight on hold for the whole length of my two-hour visit or would it erupt in furious little sports every time they had to speak? Was it my visit that provoked the fight? Really, how self-centered can I be? Surely there were other topics to fight about, since, increasingly, they didn't seem to agree on much.
The best times were when my son and I and the mate could take the boys to the beach, a mile from their house. There, they could run and roughhouse and tumble, dash in and out of the brutally cold water, peace out. Sitting in the sand, creating canals for the incoming tide, lets a body rest easy with other small bodies. Out of the house, away from Mom, the boys visibly relaxed and became goofy and jokey.
Then came the separation.
For a Reason
I characteristically spend the long, dark hours between 2 and 4 a.m. perseverating. For those of you unfamiliar with that word (same root as perseverance, yeah?) it gets used a lot in the psycho-babble community to mean dog-with-a-bone type thinking. Worrying something to death. Unable to move on.
What I think about is my grandsons, whom I have not laid eyes on for a couple of years, maybe three. I expect that I will not see them again in my lifetime. That used to make me very sad.
Now, I lie in the dark, composing letters to them in my head. Sometimes, I tell them stories from my own childhood. Sometimes I detail their father's life as a youth. Sometimes I poke holes in the logic that allows them and their mother to be fully supported by a man they won't talk to or see. Often, I picture myself shouting toward their backs as I stand on a windswept hilltop. The wind, of course, is blowing my words back.
My grandsons are fifteen and twelve. The twelve year old is coming up on bar mitzvah time, in a couple of months. I will not be invited to attend. I might choose to go anyway, since the event will take place in a building open to the public. But I probably won't. The cheap thrill of seeing my former daughter-in-law register my intrusion isn't worth taking the shine off my grandson's day.
What I think about is my grandsons, whom I have not laid eyes on for a couple of years, maybe three. I expect that I will not see them again in my lifetime. That used to make me very sad.
Now, I lie in the dark, composing letters to them in my head. Sometimes, I tell them stories from my own childhood. Sometimes I detail their father's life as a youth. Sometimes I poke holes in the logic that allows them and their mother to be fully supported by a man they won't talk to or see. Often, I picture myself shouting toward their backs as I stand on a windswept hilltop. The wind, of course, is blowing my words back.
My grandsons are fifteen and twelve. The twelve year old is coming up on bar mitzvah time, in a couple of months. I will not be invited to attend. I might choose to go anyway, since the event will take place in a building open to the public. But I probably won't. The cheap thrill of seeing my former daughter-in-law register my intrusion isn't worth taking the shine off my grandson's day.
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