Tag Archives: Family

“Why are you always in the kitchen?”

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These incredibly observant Angel Kids of mine are full of nonstop chat as they watch my every move with their laser focused eyes and brains, especially when they sit at the counter (their favorite spot), waiting to be served exactly like baby birds in a nest with their beaks open wide for mom to bring a freshly caught worm..

“Why are you always in the kitchen, Grandma?” “It’s like you have a force field around you and you’re stuck in there.” (He is SO funny.)

“Yeah, Grandma, you’re always in the kitchen!” Angel Girl has to offer her opinion, too. ALWAYS.

I stop chopping veggies or flipping pancakes or cutting the crust off another slice of bread (only for Angel Girl), and respond with a question,

“Why are you guys always hungry?”

Well, that made them think a bit, that’s for sure.

“Good point”, Angel Boy 2.0 sagely nods as he ponders what I meant by that, as he chews on a slice of apple.

Those kids LOVE apples as a pre-meal snack. Sometimes dipped in nut butter, but they’re perfectly satisfied with a bowl of sliced apples.

The key is to give each of them their own bowl or they’ll squabble about equal amounts. “Why does s/he have more than me?” Since I only birthed one child, I’m not used to this kind of sibling behavior. I actually find it incredibly annoying and to avoid listening to it, for me, separate bowls are the easiest solution.

They eat a lot, not junk food or snacks, but wholesome and dense nutrition. That’s what healthy kids do; eat, play, sleep. They’re exactly like puppies. Their growing bodies and brains demand it and I’m only too happy to oblige.

“Play with us, Grandma. We’ll even play Candyland just for you. Or Scrabble.” That’s quite the concession on their part, as they know those are my two favorite games.

“How about after you guys have this smoothie and ants on a log and a (lentil/oat/kale) muffin, we’ll play. How does that sound?”

Two curly heads nod in unison.

Eat, play, sleep.

******************************************************

Featured photo by Enchanted Seashells at Crystal Cove. Vintage kitchen, not mine.

Random Kindnesses

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Early this morning, I opened the back door and walked on the deck. Near the steps, I saw a motionless bee which I gently nudged with a stick and found him able to move ever so slightly. I brought him a small amount of water in a jar lid and watched as he thirstily inhaled a few drops. As soon as he had enough, he stumbled down the rest of the steps to a shady area on the ground.

I’m not sure if I helped him or simply prolonged the inevitable, but at least I did something to aid a living creature and that always feels good.

Later that morning, I went to the grocery store where I picked up some yummy cherries and cucumbers and avocados.

The woman in front of me had a lot of items and it looked like she was making a special dinner, maybe anniversary, or at least that was the little story I told myself as I patiently waited my turn.

I noticed that she didn’t have her own shopping bags and I watched the clerk take out a couple “store” bags and fill them with her food. After the food was paid for, the employee asked her for thirty cents to pay for the bags, which was really odd because usually they’ll ask before, so they can add it to the total. Right??? So my spidey senses were on alert as I observed the conversation.

The lady became flustered as she looked in her handbag because she didn’t have any cash or change. I could see that she was super embarrassed and I could totally relate. It didn’t seem as if she was unsheltered or didn’t have money; she was well dressed with great jewelry (I always notice stuff like that).

I said, “Let me check. I think I have thirty cents.” I usually don’t have ANY cash or coins either, but I did locate enough to pay for her store bags.

The poor woman was beside herself with gratitude, wanted to pay me back, couldn’t believe I would do that for a complete stranger, asked me my name, WAY overly intensely thankful and appreciative for a mere handful of coins.

I told her it was my pleasure to help and it wasn’t as if I offered to buy her food (haha) and she could pay it forward to someone else in the future and keep the good deed moving along.

Because her gratitude seemed oddly disproportionate, I thought it was possible that she had a bad day and my minor act of kindness gave her a bit of hope — who knows.

She did seem close to breaking down, poor dear. And all for THIRTY CENTS! I wonder if this was some sort of low rent scam so the employee could pocket the money, but that was most likely not the case. Anyway, it was a strange encounter and I was glad to help because it did seem that was the only way I was going to get out of the store, haha. (BTW, I had my own bags.)

Sometimes I’ll see someone do a kind but simply mundane gesture and I’ll just get filled with this unexplainable joy that someone did something nice for someone else with no strings attached; no ulterior motives, no agenda.

After that experience, I went to Sprouts because I was out of probiotics (I love probiotics). The woman in front of me in line (same scenario!) turned to me. She held out a couple pieces of candy wrapped in shiny gold foil and asked me if I wanted them. She said they were free and pointed to where she got them, somewhere else in the store.

I told her how much I LOVE free things (I really do) but asked why she didn’t want them. She explained that she had tasted another one and they were milk chocolate and she only likes dark chocolate. I said I like all variety of chocolate (except white) and gladly accepted her little gifts.

Two acts of kindness were immediately repaid by another; what a great (and sweet) day!

Featured image credit to oechsli.com

A Grandma’s Mantra: “Read a book…” 📚

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Back when the original Angel Boy began to walk and talk, my default response when the “I’m bored, I have nothing to do” complaints started, has always been, “Go read a book.”

Now I do the same thing to the grandkids, especially Angel Boy 2.0 who has become a wonderful reader.

Recently we were in a baseball card shop and he was TAKING LITERALLY FOREVER to look at cards and decide which ones he wanted to buy and figure out how much of HIS money he was willing to spend and how much he could get from me. That scenario brought up happy deja vu memories of his parsimonious dad at the same age. The thrifty apple didn’t fall too far from THAT tree, haha.

I walked outside, I walked back in, I pulled on his shirt and whined, “Are you almost done? I’M SO BORED!!”

Without skipping a beat, he said, “Hey Grandma, why don’t you go read a book!”

And then he laughed and I laughed but I got the last laugh because that proved that he had really listened to me. A total win for Grandma!

I gotta confess though, I was SO BORED in that card shop, every minute seemed like an hour. Memories.

It’s really funny, because the original AB is NEVER without a book and leveraged that love of reading into a Yale PhD, writing his own book (published by a prestigious house), and tenure at a major uni, so I guess my annoying mantra helped guide his path to success.

Grandma’s Mantra:
📚 If you’re bored, read a book!
📚 If you have a minute before school starts, read a book!
📚 If you’re waiting for a doctor’s appointment, read a book!
📚 If you can’t think of anything productive to do, read a book!

Try my method; it really works!

📚

Faint, Not Feint | Part Two

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Feinting is a deceptive or pretended blow, thrust, or other movement, especially in boxing or fencing.

Fainting, or syncope, is what I experienced a couple months ago. I definitely wasn’t feinting when I got dizzy, nauseous, fell, and hit the fireplace. The loss of consciousness felt really weird and not entirely unpleasant.

I thought it was simply an unexplained but strange incident, and finally told my doctor about it.

Her response to me was, “Of course you went to the ER, what did they say? I don’t see that in your notes.”

I replied, “Oh no, I didn’t go anywhere and I didn’t call the paramedics, either, because I was wearing my Hello Kitty jammies. No way was I going to let anyone see me.”

She shook her head and laughed as I explained to her that my RN mom had often drilled into my head that I should never EVER go to the doctor or a hospital unless I was well dressed and nicely groomed– and always with pretty underwear. I mean, there might be scenarios where that’s impossible, but her words are tattooed in my brain.

Of course I would have sought immediate medical help if it happened again, but so far I’ve been lucky.

My doc said her mom was exactly the same, so she understood. However, after asking me a lot of questions, she was concerned enough about my syncope episode to want to rule out any underlying and serious reasons, so she gave me an electrocardiogram and referred me to radiology for a carotid artery ultrasound.

The ECG looked OK and I’ve booked the appointment for the ultrasound to see how my four carotid arteries are performing. Most of the time I think I’m pretty smart but I didn’t know there were FOUR carotids–I thought there was only one, so I’ve learned something. Hopefully, we can rule out any underlying blockages to explain why I fainted. The worse case scenario is that a blocked artery can lead to an increased stroke risk or an aneurysm, but at least I’ll find out one way or another.

The best case scenario is that it was a singular vasovagal syncope episode with no lasting harm. Fingers crossed. Maybe I will actually have “feinted” and dodged a direct hit. That’s funny to think about, but then I’ve been accused of being easily amused…

Since then, my goal has been to mindfully dress for the emergency that might never happen; a personal version of disaster preparedness.

On A Dark Desert(ed) Highway

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Photo by Mario Cuadros on Pexels.com

This all happened quite a while ago, but I realized I hadn’t shared it, so here’s the scary story of my almost brush with death; a cautionary tale of the time I might have starred in a Dateline episode.

I had to be somewhere very early, too early to inconvenience anyone by asking for a ride, so I called a car service. I’ll be vague about which one, but it’s one of the big guys.

It was dark; I waited outside, the driver was on time. The first thing I noticed (red flag number one) is that the car stopped and he started it up again. I thought maybe he was saving gas, so didn’t really think too much about it. We had a few stop signs on the way to the freeway and the engine stalled at every one of them and had to be started back up. (red flag number two). I was a bit concerned and that’s probably when I should have told him to turn around and found another form of transportation but I didn’t.

The driver spoke no English. I mean, ZERO. I managed to learn that he was from Colombia. I could see the Google map on his phone was in Spanish. I spoke a bit of Spanish so we were able to sort of communicate.

Finally on the freeway, his car was going VERY SLOW, well under the speed limit. The engine hadn’t stalled again, though. (another red flag.)

The driver wore very thick glasses and seemed to have a difficult time seeing the road as he was slightly weaving out of his lane. It’s a good thing that it was so early with not many cars on the road. I don’t think he was drunk; I think he couldn’t SEE the road. (red flag!)

The headlights also seemed to be malfunctioning; he’d turn them off and on and the car would sort of slow down and speed up, which was reallyreally freaking me out.

I was beginning to get a little more panicky every second, and even more so when, for some reason, he took the wrong exit on the freeway. We were in a rural area that was heavily wooded- no houses, no stores; nothing.

The very worst case scenarios were running through my head at warp speed. We were on a frontage road with no lights and no people. I thought there was a good possibility that I was going to be the victim of a horrible crime, I really did.

If the worst happened, no one would find me out in the middle of nowhere on a dark, deserted highway. I was petrified, thinking of all the horror stories I had heard about getting in cars with strangers.

Loudly, I commanded, “HEY! This is the wrong exit. GET BACK ON THE FREEWAY NOW!”

I had my hand on the door and 911 ready to be called on my phone. I was ready to bolt and run. I was terrified.

For a brief moment that seemed to last for days, he hesitated, and then, thankfully, turned around. We got back on the freeway, and at which point he was completely lost. I had to direct him the rest of the way to my ultimate destination but not before his car stalled AGAIN at the final stoplight.

I leapt out of his car while it was still slightly moving and RAN into the building. It took forever for my heart rate to subside and the adrenaline to stop pouring through my body. I was as shaky as the time I got an EpiPen for a bee sting. I had to force myself to breathe and slowly regained my calm.

There were so many red flags 🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩 that I ignored. Never again!

Friends have asked me if I reported the driver. I thought about it, but I didn’t. Although it was scary, nothing bad actually happened. I was so grateful to be alive and unharmed that I wanted to forget all about it. However, I don’t think his vehicle was going to last much longer, so maybe he’ll figure out that driving people around isn’t the right career choice.

The lesson is to listen to your gut in all life circumstances. If something doesn’t feel right, it most likely is a warning that should be heeded.

I am 1000% grateful that the universe and all the angels once again protected me from harm.

Have you ever experienced a similar scary event?

Mother’s Day: BoyMom Edition

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All I ever wanted to be was a boymom and I got my wish with the original Angel Boy.

Happy Mother’s Day!

BEST BOYMOM QUOTE EVER: “If all the little boys in the world were lined up and I had to just pick only one, I’d choose you… every time.” (Barbra Streisand to Seth Rogan in the film Guilt Trip.)

This is a funny story and all you’ll ever need to know about my AB:

Since his life threatening medical issue and subsequent (emergency) major abdominal surgery for a ruptured Meckel’s Diverticulum a few years ago, he needs to be careful about his diet for the rest of his life, mainly never popcorn, but other foods can irritate the anastomosis repair, too, which he learned by trial and error.

He recovered better than expected from the surgery except for THAT little issue.

Recently, I suggested (not nagged) that he might benefit from regularly taking probiotics to normalize his intestinal flora and fauna, and I made sure he took them every day while we were together.

How do I do that? I chose the right time, like when he was involved in editing his new book or grading papers. That’s when I know he’s REALLY the absentminded professor and won’t pay any attention to me. I then hand him the probiotic capsules with a freshly made smoothie and he downs them without argument or question. However, it’s only a delayed reaction because fifteen minutes later, he’ll ask me what it was that I gave him but then it’s too late to refuse. HAHAHAHA. #momhack

I sent him a photo of the supplements he WILLINGLY swallowed so he could take them all the time and heard nothing about it or a couple weeks…until yesterday when he texted me and I admit it took me a second or two to figure out he was being his usual snarky, facetious self:

Apparently when it becomes HIS idea, it’s worth doing. Hmmm. Whatever works, right? After all these years, I finally figured out that he likes to think about things for a while before he makes a decision, so I sent him a photo of the type of magnesium and D3 gummies I take along with this text:

That’s my Angel Boy. Stubborn child, but no matter what, he’ll forever be my heart.

Nowadays I’m even luckier to be grandma of those two vibrant Angel Kids who started calling me “Gramps” for absolutely no reason at all, but it makes me chuckle.

When I asked them, “Why do you call me Gramps?”, they laughed hysterically, so I guess that’s who I am now.

There will never be a greater joy than being loved by those guys, that’s for sure. That’s what life is all about.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms and grandmas from Gramps!

FYI: Great article to explain emergency surgery for Meckel’s Diverticulum https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2533303/

In Limbo

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The days between Christmas and the new year are suspended in amber; a week of feeling in limbo — at least for me.

The frenzy leading up to Christmas that started at Halloween and progressed to Thanksgiving and finally to December 25 is a mess of cooking and baking and cleaning — and now it’s over, along with the twenty-four hour Christmas music on the radio.

It’s so so quiet outside, like a day during the pandemic.

It’s a great time to shop the after holiday sales, but I have enough wrapping paper and Christmas cards and decorations to last until the next century, so I’m not all that excited about the 75% off prices…although I DO love a bargain.

But — we’re not quite done because the end of the year is only a few days away and that occasion is supposed to be memorialized by some sort of celebration, whether you choose to go to a ball or a party or stay home by the fire with a glass of champagne and try to stay awake until midnight.

And then it’s over — but not until the idiots shoot guns in the air and set off more fireworks that scare all the animals.

I’m not sure I’d call this feeling a full fledged depression, but there’s a term that describes it pretty well… Post Holiday Blues. It sounds like it should be the title of a song, right? PHB refers to the letdown we might feel after all the excitement and anticipation leading up to the holidays.

I hope Santa brought you everything you asked for and enjoy this week in limbo, waiting for 2025.

Surfing and Cartwheeling

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Do you remember your firsts?

I do. I remember my first ballet class, my first pair of pointe shoes, my first ski trip along with my best ride down Stump Alley at Mammoth, and even my first bra, lolz

Not having grown up on the west coast, I didn’t have a connection to the ocean until high school.

I recall my first time on a surfboard…it did NOT go well, and I almost broke my nose. This was not the sport for me. Decades later, I gave it another try. Once again, it didn’t go well. I ended up rolling and rolling under some giant NOT BEGINNER waves, and the next day I was covered in the ugliest bruises. That was IT for me.

Angel Girl takes gymnastics and was obsessed with cartwheels. Tenacious girl that she is, she tried and practiced and kept at it until the mechanics of a cartwheel finally clicked and she perfected it. “Watch me, Grandma!” “See, I can do it now!”

What an amazing sense of accomplishment and mastery of a difficult skill. “Great job, girl!”

Even though we live so close to the ocean, the original Angel Boy didn’t really like to surf, mainly because without his glasses, he can’t see a thing, and it was a scary endeavor unless he had a buddy with him. He’d boogie board a lot, but never really got into surfing until he started wearing contacts.

Now he has a quiver of boards here and at his house, too.

To encourage AB 2.0, he’s been taken along for (gentle) rides on a surfboard since he was about a year old.

This past weekend, it finally clicked for him, too. He stood up and surfed his first legit wave!

This is a bad photo because I took it from the video, but I can feel T’s sense of pride. It didn’t matter that it was a small wave: HE DID IT, and OMG, he’s a carbon copy of his dad.

Predictably, you couldn’t get him out of the water after that. He’s completely hooked, and now Dad has a lifelong surfing buddy. As an aside, is there anything cuter than a little grom in a wetsuit?

I hope they never forget these significant firsts, and since we have video of all of it, I can imagine they’ll show their own children these amazing accomplishments.

Grandma pride RULES!

Your Little Boy

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“Do you know what YOUR LITTLE BOY did?”

“Grandma, I need to tell you about YOUR LITTLE BOY!”

It never fails to make me laugh when I hear both Angels refer to their dad that way.

It started a long time ago when I explained to them that not only was I their grandma, but that their dad was my little boy and he’ll ALWAYS be my little boy.

Ever since, and especially when they have some juicy gossip OR a complaint, he’s referred to as “your little boy”.

When he rode his skateboard sans helmet which is absolutely DUMB, Angel Boy 2.0 would call me and tattle on him. When he fell off his surfboard, I was told about it. When he ran through a red light, yup, I had a phone call.

“Grandma, you will not BELIEVE what your little boy did!”

They extract a great deal of enjoyment when I scold their dad about his small crimes and misdemeanors; I’m a constant source of entertainment: “DAD, GRANDMA WANTS TO TALK TO YOU ABOUT YOUR BEHAVIOR!”

Mom isn’t exempt either, but MY little boy bears the brunt of the scandalous chat.

This time was a bit different. AB is now in third grade and his sister will start kindergarten at the same school. Usually Dad walked him as it’s only a couple blocks away and Mom stayed with the baby, now not a baby. (This is a cool deja vu moment for both Dad and me, because HIS elementary school was also in walking distance, and it was a great time to chat and walk there every day.)

I got the phone call….“Do you know what your little boy is going to do when school starts?“

I literally had no idea.

“Because I like to get to school early – Grandma, you know I don’t like to be late — and you know how Dad and I race there every day and sometimes I win –and C can’t EVER wake up, YOUR LITTLE BOY is going to run me to school first, come home, and then bring C. Isn’t that funny?”

“Well, T, why don’t you just wait until your sister is ready and Dad will only have to make one trip?”

“OMG Grandma, you KNOW that won’t work! We have to leave at exactly the right time.”

The backstory is that Angel Boy 2.0 has always been an early riser like Dad (and me), but his sister could sleep all night and most of the day. Sometimes, we still check on her to make sure she’s breathing, but boyohboy can that girl SLEEP.

Her pre-school started at 9:15 and it was often a struggle to get her there on time. Kindergarten starts at 7:55 a.m. so she’s going to have to go to bed extra early to train for a new sleep schedule. There will no longer be an option to let her skip a day or two or come in a couple hours late.

The best part of this story is how much Angel Boy loves school. He can’t wait to get there and always wants to stay after to play with friends.

His dad loved to learn, too, and still does.

It’s markedly different than my experience, that’s for sure. I didn’t like school and couldn’t wait to get home. The only happy part of it for me was the night before when I chose whatever pretty dress I would wear the next day. There were always matching socks and ribbons for my hair.

Being a fashionista is a life long pursuit and I can’t wait to see what the kids wear for their first day.

MY LITTLE BOY had his own sense of style…

The original Angel Boy with Stella Rondo

Hearts and Sons

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My son is the classic dictionary definition of an absent minded professor (which he is). His beautiful brain has multiple trains of thought all speeding along at the same time, so sometimes, day-to-day mundane tasks fall by the wayside.

It was early morning and he had returned from a dawn patrol surf sesh. We were having a lively “discussion” about where to put his surfboard…”Mom, Mom, I’m going to leave it right here, don’t worry. I’m going to surf later, too.”

Whenever he says “don’t worry”, there’s an eighty to one hundred percent chance that it’s something I SHOULD worry about. I learned that after forty-three years of being his mom.

I told him I’d prefer it if he took the extra few minutes to put it away in the garage where it belongs.

This discussion took place as we’re standing in the driveway. It could have been today or a couple decades ago; some things never change!

We were at an impasse. Hands on my hips, I stubbornly stuck to my position that the surfboard needed to go back where it belongs or I would end up trying to lift up a longboard that’s twice my size. Something would break; either the board or me.

Finally, I said, “Look how much time you’re wasting. If you had simply put it up instead of trying to convince me to allow you to leave the surfboard in the way, you’d already be in the house eating your breakfast burrito!”

Well, that’s the kind of logic that works with him. He finally put his board away. Like I told him his entire life, he should take his arguing and debating skills and become a lawyer like his grandfather.

As we wrapped up a twenty minute negotiation, I looked down and found this perfectly formed heart leaf. I took a picture, picked it up, brought it in the house, and I’m looking for a suitable frame while my (annoying) child inhales his breakfast.

It’s all about love. It always has been, and always will be. That child IS my heart, whether he’s being annoying or not.