“You are not going out with that boy unless his parents are driving and that's that. I'm not just Spitting Grits here, young lady!”

. . . My father, John Thomas Cravey, USAF, to me in 1956.
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Parenting Grandparents: Number 1 Splashdown

A Woman’s work is never done, says the old saw. An old parenting grandmother’s work is always overwhelming, says I.

Yesterday I asked my three-year old granddaughter if she needed to potty before I put her in the tub. She did.

I knelt over the tub to wash it out. Suddenly she tripped over my leg as she went to pour the contents of the potty pan into the commode. Her number 1 went everywhere – the floor, my White Flower Farm catalogue, my Rolling Stone magazine, and two books: Old Friend from Far Away by Natalie Goldberg and Google’s Blogger for Dummies by Susan Gunelius.

All this stuff was one thing when I was a 36-year-old Super Mom. It is quite another 30 years later as a grandparent parenting a three-year-old. Do the math. I believe it would be easier to re-learn algebra than to get it all done each day and then deal with the splashdown of a 3-year-old’s number 1.

But this afternoon’s event really did it.

I went to the grocery store about 3 p.m. after doing wash, cleaning up the kitchen, vacuuming, cleaning up the cat’s vomit, and other menial chores.

It was threatening to rain, so I wanted to get it done. Plus, we had no toilet paper or night-night diapers. I ran up and down the aisles like someone was after me, pausing to give customers hogging the space a dirty look. I had to double back for more cat food for Patty Cake to throw up.

I spotted a check-out lane with no one in it, so I took off for that one. I got about half my stuff  scanned before noticing a young girl behind me with two items, but it was too late to be nice. I said to the check-out person, “I just want to beat the rain.”

I scanned my debit card, signed the receipt, grabbed the buggy and took off for the door.

“Wait, lady, wait.”

I looked back; I had left the cokes and a grocery bag of food on the counter. I grabbed it and ran.

It had started to sprinkle. I was throwing the bags into the back and I heard a nice voice say to me, “Can I help you with those?”

It was the young blonde girl from the check-out aisle, with University of Alabama shorts on and heading to her gold-colored Honda Civic. How nice of her, I thought.

“No, but thanks,” I said.

Wait. Was she really being nice or paying me back for not letting her ahead of me in line?

I turned back and said, “Do I look old enough to look like I need help?” I asked pleadingly.

But she was in the car by then, cranking it.

That’s just one more thing I don’t know the answer to.

 

1 comment:

Jess said...

Aw, so sorry. At least it was only number 1, not 2? My little guy is only a bit younger than your lovely girl, but he managed to poop in his bath last week, with him, the bathmat, and about a half dozen bath toys all contaminated. His Dad was out of town, natch.

Hope the day improved after that?

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