60. Mashup
A Little One On My Mind
I’m going to start this blog with a Mashup Monday breakfast-tale. There are two components to breakfast at MammyGrams — one is eating — one is Hide ‘N Seeking.
A little background. Before Hadley bursts through our front door any given Monday-Friday, Tim has taken a little something — something from a stash of toys we keep in a kitchen drawer — and has hidden it somewhere on the first floor of our home. This used to be part of my routine, but it’s part of his now — his favorite part I might add.
At 5:15 AM, Mr. Wonderful comes downstairs, kisses the top of my head, shuffles to the kitchen, plugs in the percolator, takes a soon-to-be-hidden-treasure from our stash, and hides it. In the earliest days of this fun fest — when Hadley was about three years old, the hiding places fell into the category of ‘hiding in plain sight’ — like hanging some little thing from a lamp switch with just enough of the object easily seen below the shade — or sitting the object on top of a decorative tea pot or in a pretty bowl on my hutch. As time progressed, the hiding places became way more sophisticated — like inside the freezer, or inside the only coffee mug turned right side up in the cupboard, or tucked into a pair of shoes at the slider door, or in the pocket of someone’s sweatshirt haphazardly tossed onto the back of a kitchen chair.
The practice of daily searches began back-in-the-day when Hannah and Hadley lived with Tim and me. Mr. Wonderful and I did the breakfast routine with our favorite little human while Hannah got ready for work. I’d venture to guess that in households around the world, mornings are the most fast-paced, amped-up, crazy time of day. There are lots of things that need to happen in a very short period of time and eating breakfast is inarguably the most important thing. It quickly became the pisser-part of my day with Hannah’s daughter.
The first thing is this: Hadley didn’t wake with a need to eat. Left to her own druthers, she would probably wait until 9 AM before asking for anything to eat or drink — not helpful if the child needs to be up and out by 7:30. The second thing is this: Hadley wakes with a million things that need to be said — immediately. It’s as though all of the previous day’s events tumbled through her head all night and she just had to tell you all about them — right then — before the essential caffeination process of the grandparents was complete. So, while her Rice Krispies were doing the snap, crackle, and pop, Hadley was yakking up a storm.
The constant refrain from me became, “Hadley, eat your breakfast, please.” OR, “When you stop for a breath, do some chomping before more talking.”
She’d laugh. She’d breathe. She’d chomp.
She’d flap her jaws.
One morning, while Mr. Chase and Mr. Sanborn were percolating, I found a little Hadley trinket she’d misplaced several days before. I knew she’d be thrilled that ‘the most special thing ever’ was headed back where it belonged — in Hadley’s hand. I knew she’d want to bond with it as soon as possible.
And. Then. This. Happened
Lightbulb moment!
When she came down for breakfast that morning, I told her I found her trinket, and that I’d hidden it, and that she could search for it — “Just as soon as you are done eating breakfast.”
That was that, folks.
Hadley had an incentive to eat her food quickly.
MammyGram’s technique may be a fail on the good/bad practices of Toddler Teaching, but it matters little to me. My thoughts on the subject, kids need to eat — that’s the bottom-line. When it came to my Dawdling Diner, it was incumbent upon me to find a way to get food into the kid’s mouth with as little stress as possible. If that meant I employed the ‘eat and you shall find’ methodology — so be it. And, before you start your judging, you should also know that I’m one of those parents/grandparents who doesn’t stand on ceremony when it comes to breakfast offerings. If my daughters or granddaughter wanted leftover mac and cheese and orange juice, or a cookie-cutter, heart-shaped PB&J sandwich and milk, or a bowl of fruit salad and a granola bar for breakfast — then that is what they got for breakfast. It mattered not one bit to me what the fuel source for the day was — within reason, of course. (This will come back to bite me in the ass before this blog is done. Count on it). Anyway, what did matter was that they ate their food, in a timely fashion — and the meal time experience did not inflict lifelong battle scars.
I was a child of the 60s, so I carry a shrapnel wound or two from mealtime skirmishes. The rule in our house was this: food was put on the table at a precise time, and you ate it — whether you liked it or not. An equally important rule was this: you spoke if you were spoken to — whether you liked it or not. Generally speaking I liked the guardrails of dinnertime — sit, eat, talk if need be.
Without question, the best part of our dining experience was the food. My mother was a very good cook — but she was on a very tight budget. The bottom-line of that was this: there were times when she needed to prepare inexpensive meals that would feed a family of six —— those meals did not always please the resident children at 10 Hobson Avenue. The list below REALLY didn’t please the children.
Donnie = green-bean casserole.
Sheryll = corn chowder.
Marjorie = salmon wiggle.
Just typing those words has brought a sweat to my upper lip and an
uptick in my heartrate.
I have one vivid memory of skipping gleefully into our home after having a wonderful day at school and stopping hard on the black and white tiled kitchen floor. The cold hand of dread grabbed hold of my spine and a cramping began in my innards when I saw a bag of potatoes and a couple cans of creamed corn resting on the counter. Within the blink of already filling eyes, I sent a pleading look my mother’s way.
She whispered her preemptive apology. “I’m sorry. It’s all I have.”
By the time dinnertime arrived, I was already ill from the tummy burning, turning, and churning. When dinner was over for everyone else, they fled the scene, sending, ‘I’m sorry’ looks my way. I stayed behind for the badgering and the uncomfortable stare from the man who insisted I eat the bowl of wretched creamed crap. When he finally tired of the Drill Down and retired for the evening, I remained perched at the pits of Hell.
Normally, I would stay at the table until such time as he took mercy on me and allowed me to go to bed — hungry. Most often, the table-sit punishment lasted just long enough to make me hate my life. One night, when I was about eleven or so, my mouth got the best of me. I drew a line in the sand that the two of us toed. The words that were said that evening would never be forgotten — by me, anyway.
“Eat your food.”
“I don’t like it.”
“You would have liked it better when it was warm.
“Temperature doesn’t matter. I hate corn chowder and I’m not going to eat it.”
“Do you know how many kids there are in the world who are starving?”
“No. Do you?” That question began my downward slide.
“Those kids would do anything for a meal like that.”
I pushed the bowl away, “Then send this to them.” Slip-sliding away.
“They’d eat it — I can tell you that. They’re starving.”
“And they’ll still be starving if I eat this crap.” Hello, rock bottom. I fell asleep with my head on the table. It was still there when he got up for work. And as soon as he left, Mom rescued me with PB toast.
I much prefer the strategy I use with my granddaughter. Hadley bursts through the front door, heads directly to the table, concentrates on one thing only — eating — then goes on a search for a little hidden treasure. We’ve done this for years, and as time went on, her taste in gadgets and gizmos changed. At the beginning of this school year, we began hiding Beanie Babies — the ones that were all the rage when Hannah and Jessica were young — the ones they collected and protected.
Each of my girls had a big-ass decorative basket in their bedroom full to the brim with the ‘cute-as-can-be collectables’ — the ones that took over their souls and every square inch of my home when they escaped their baskets. The girls, and all of their friends, knew everything about the little critters, the names and dates on each hanging tag, how important it was to keep the tags affixed and in perfect condition, the rarity of certain Beanies, and the order in which they’d received them. Beanie Babies became my girls’ version of baseball card collecting.
I thoroughly enjoyed the whole Ty experience, and did my fair share of helping them build their collection. I even had Tim visit Oak Brook, Illinois, the location of a Ty Warner manufacturing plant, during one of his trips to Chicago. Why, you may be asking yourself — because I hoped he could purchase the rarified, 1st generation, 1993 Humphrey the camel.
Apparently, I was obsessed, too.
A little research lesson. The first business to produce a direct-to-consumer website designed to engage a specific marketplace was Ty for their new Beanie Babies product line. When the Ty website was published in 1995, only 14% of Americans were using the internet. The marketing strategy of having a hangtag with the name and birthdate of the Beanies was thoughtful, the inclusion of the Ty website URL on each tag was ingenious. Consumers visited the website by the thousands to get information about the newest sensation — which in turn, created the newest sensation.
Okay, back to the story. As soon as my girls headed off to college, the itty-bitty dust collectors were bagged and put into plastic storage bins in our basement where they’ve stayed for upwards of fifteen years. Recently, the Beanie Babies craze picked up again with a whole new set of critters being introduced to the new generation of collectors — children of the original collectors.
MammyGrams thought a little ‘payback is a bitch’ would be fun, so I had Mr. Wonderful haul the adorable Beanie Babies upstairs. On her first day of second grade, Hadley went in search of her after-breakfast-stash. It was the Peace Bear Beanie — one of Hannah’s favorites — until she saw it in Hadley’s hand.
“Tell me you’re not going to hide all of them.”
I laughed.
She did not.
A few days after the 100th day of school celebration in February, we ran out of Beanie Babies. Hadley and I decided to have a celebratory half-sleepover with all of her critter friends in attendance. It took several trips back and forth between houses to carry the loot. When the last few were dropped onto the enormous pile I heard.
“Thank you, MammyGrams,” from my granddaughter.
And a “Yeah, thanks,” from my daughter.
And I got a high-five from my husband.
By the way, our high-fives have taken on the quality of the gentle flap of a butterfly wing so as to not break anything. Depleted of Beanies, I did a review of Hadley’s newest interests and started hiding keychains and a new set of collectibles called Squishmallows. These adorable, very soft huggables come in a variety of sizes, and colors, and are fashioned as land, air, and sea animals.
Why am I telling you this? I honestly don’t know. I think it’s to establish a timeline for my mornings, but your guess is as good as mine — probably better. I need to scroll up. Okay, I’m back and I’ve brought with me the point of this blog.
Hadley’s Mashup Monday turned into Apple Day. She had a bowl of Apple Jacks cereal, half an apple cut into long strips she calls, “Apple Fries,” a dollop of apple sauce, and a small sip or two of apple juice — AND then she went searching for her hidden treasure. It was in a wooden fruit bowl on our kitchen table and it was a happy-faced apple-shaped Squishmallow — one of the newest line of fruit and veggie huggables. My girl got quite the kick out of Apple Day and headed off to school with a happy face of her own!
And. Then. This. Happened.
The norm is this: as soon as H&H get home each day, Hannah heads inside her abode and Hadley comes to mine and gives me a brief rundown of her day before she heads off to have a snack and to do her homework. Last Monday, there was no trip to MammyGrams. I watched H&H walk from the car — Hadley had her arms wrapped around Hannah’s thigh and the mother unit had her hand resting on the child’s shoulder. Hannah sent a look my way and headed inside.
Within the hour, Hannah was stepping through my front door. “I only have a minute. Hadley’s doing ST Math. So, this happened — they were learning about philosophy and philosophers in class and at the end of the lecture they were told to take a few minutes to wonder about something and then write it down.”
I groaned. I grunted. I knew what was coming.
“Hadley said she got tears in her eyes because she wondered if the cancer boo-boo in MammyGrams was getting bigger and how much time there was before.”
My heart broke.
My daughter’s heart — already heavy with sadness for her little girl — broke; it included rarely seen tears that actually found their way southward.
“What did you say?” I asked.
“That it was okay to feel sad and that I’m really glad she told me — and that you and she could have a heart-to-heart whenever she was ready.”
I sighed — just a little bit. “You know, Hannah, you could have that heart-to-heart with her.”
“Nope. Don’t think I could.”
And off she went, out the door, with a guilty little wave sent my way. I don’t blame Hannah for passing the buck. That’s the way I conditioned her, and Jessica, and Tim, and now Hadley. I am their touchstone. The one who isn’t afraid of having difficult conversations, the one who takes information in — spins it a bit — and offers an opinion or an assessment or advice or whatever it is that is warranted.
That is not to say my family blindly follows my spoken word — far from it. I’m basically the sounding board, I offer my opinion, they assess my position and either accept it or reject it outright — but I am always on the frontlines.
The thing is: I won’t always be on the frontlines.
Until such time, I will push into the difficult discussions.
Hadley came for a half-sleepover on Saturday. It was a monkey themed fun fest. At 3 PM our guest arrived with every monkey thing she’s already accumulated over the years. Her most treasured of all is a ‘beyond adorable’ 16” stuffed monkey that has a push-button activated voice recording of me saying, “Sleep well, Hadley. I love you, MammyGrams.” She handed me her monkey and I handed her a list of scavenger hunt clues.
Backstory #1. A month or two ago, Hadley heard the word, ‘fuck’ for the first time. I know it’s surprising that she didn’t hear it at 183 Wildwood, but my house is a no-swear zone if Little Ones are in earshot. I think I mentioned in a previous blog that Hadley told us she heard the F-word at school, and that it sounded like ‘buck’ but the word was ‘fuck’ — I laughed like a ‘bucking’ fool inside when I heard my nerdy granddaughter say the F-word.
Conversations ensued between me and the kid and Hannah and the kid and Tim and the kid and Jessie and the kid — each of us explaining that kids shouldn’t be using swear words, but in the world of swears, some were considered mildly-inappropriate, while others were absolutely not allowed and the F-word was one of those.
“How about freakin? Is that word allowed?”
“That’s between you and your mother,” I said. (See, I can pass the buck, too).
Out she went – in she came. “Mom said that I should try hard not to say it, and I could only say it at home or here.”
Within days she said it here.
“The freakin internet is down,” the 7-y.o. bellyached.
I laughed.
Backstory #2 — how appropriate. On Mashup Monday — Apple Day, Hadley complained to her teacher that she had a tummy ache. Off to the school nurse she went. Normal questions were asked.
“Do you feel like you might throw up?”
“No.”
“Do you need to do Number 2?”
“What’s that?”
“Do you need to poop?”
“No. Poop has a number?”
“You never heard Number 1 and Number 2?”
“No. What’s Number 1?”
“Pee.” The nurse continued. “Did you eat anything different today?”
“It was Apple Day at MammyGrams. I had Apple Jacks, a sliced apple, apple sauce, and apple juice.”
“Okay. I think that’s why your tummy is upset.”
MammyGrams was thrown under the fucking bus!
About Apple Day.
AND
The entire O’Brien family neglected to teach the kid about
Number 1 and Number 2.
We suck!!!!!!!
When Hadley came home, I got a hand to the hip lecture about having too many ‘like’ foods for breakfast — and a pissy-toned, “Why didn’t I know about Number 1 and Number 2?”
I actually tried to defend myself to a 7 year-old. “Did you say it was Apple Day and it was a special occasion? And that your meals are usually varied and healthy? And you didn’t know about Number 1 and Number 2 because we use actual descriptive words in our house? And did you tell the nurse she should cut me some slack because I am dying?”
I didn’t say that last sentence.
Thank God or Ron and anyone else who might be monitoring my flapping jaws.
What I did instead was use some of Monday’s events when I was making up scavenger hunt clues — and then I parlayed the fun with monkey-themed keychains for our half-sleepover.
Here are the clues:
This can open and it can close.
And it can keep things very cold.
It may not be right here.
But it is very, very near.
Refrigerator
This place you can sit a while.
You do your thing, you get a smile.
Do numbers 1 and 2.
Then wash up when you’re through.
Bathroom Sink
The sun is for the light of day.
The moon brightens the darkest way.
But at night use one of these.
Or else prepare for bumped up knees.
Flashlight
This has a cute girl’s name.
But she can never play a game.
Because she goes round and round.
So what you seek can be found.
Lazy Susan
This can hang from a hook.
This can help you mix or cook.
It can hold things deep inside.
And makes a great place to hide.
Measuring Cup
This can keep your hand from cold.
Or hold things new or old.
It’s best to slide things really deep.
Especially things you want to keep.
Jacket Pocket
Each successful hunt ended with Hadley finding an adorable monkey keychain. The last clue brought her to a fit of laughter — a shiny silver keychain that says.
I just freakin love monkeys. Ok.
Hadley freakin loved that. Ok.
MammyGrams freakin loved that. Ok.
The other thing that happened on that Mashup Monday will stay with me forever. I recently wrote in a blog that I was expecting a visit from my mother and sister, and I was going to get up and hug them. I did that on Sunday when they came. Hadley and Hannah weren’t here during that visit but they were here for supper that night. Hannah asked if I got the chance to hug Grammy and Marjorie.
“Yes. When they got ready to leave, I got up and stepped into my walker. I asked each one to come as close as possible on the other side and then we hugged.” I was choked with emotion when I finished telling her.
“Oh, Mom. I’m so glad.”
On Monday mornings, my hospice nurse visits. I was heading into the bathroom to brush my teeth and I stopped in the doorway to wave to Hadley who was sitting at my kitchen table being poisoned by her Apple Day breakfast. When I came out of the bathroom and stopped to do another wave, Hadley was gone. I called out. “Is Hadley done with breakfast? Did Hadley leave?” When I rounded into the living room. Hadley was standing where I usually park my walker.
“Nope. I’m here, MammyGrams, waiting for a hug.” She waited expectantly until I stepped into my walker. She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around me. Then she pressed her face to my chest and held on.
It filled my heart with joy.
When she stepped back she had a huge smile on her face and a tear or two in her eyes. “I can come over for a hug anytime you get up, MammyGrams. Just call.”
“You’re right. You can.”
And so, I call. And so, she comes. And then we hug.
And, as for the philosopher conversation, it went like this. “Your mother said you got upset at school the other day.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you feel like talking about it?”
She pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms tightly around them. “I don’t want to talk.”
“Do you want me to talk?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. I think the most important thing for you to know is that I’ve been feeling really good lately. And I’m taking really good care of myself. And although I am very sick, I don’t feel sick today. And if things change and I start to feel sick, I’ll tell you. So you should try not to worry. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“And you can ask me anything at any time. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“So, how about we enjoy our time together.”
“Okay.”
“What do you want to do?”
“Play Buckets. I freakin love that game.”