Happy Birthday Party to Me

This birthday party fling is working well.

Since Joanna Leigh turned only three two weeks ago, I had thought that I could get away with one more year of not having a birthday party. Wrong.

Birthday parties have become such thematic productions that we can only dread them. The theme cakes from the grocery store bakeries are beyond awful, even though the kids like them. They are basically a tiny bit of flour and tons of food-coloring Crisco and sugar, shaped into Dora or a Princess, or Spider Man or . . . .

But, hey, this is working better than Christmas.

I’ve decided on a Cupcake tea party theme. We’ll have small tea sandwiches, like mini-grilled cheese, banana, and cucumber. The homemade cake will be a huge cupcake; there’s a cake pan for that as well as anything else you can imagine.

I read in some book that the terrible twos could spill over into three; it has. But every time I tell Joanna Leigh to stop doing something, like pouring her juice into and out of her play kitchen utensils – and missing everything except the floor and rug – and she stands there looking straight at me with this defiant smirk, I say, “Ok, young lady. There will be NO birthday party until you can do what Mama Jo says.”

“Noooo,” she wails.

“Are you going to do what I say?”

“Yes, m’am.”

As soon as the party is over on Sunday, then it’s only six months’ til Christmas – NOT any too early to begin invoking Santa Claus!

Oh, baaahhh, Humbug, TOTALLY. But, look, if it works, I’ll get past it.

 

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Grandparents Parenting: Three Blings

 

Our granddaughter Joanna Leigh is 3! Her birthday party, however, isn’t for another week, and making that distinction was not working very well.

 

I took big globby fat cupcakes to her preschool day care class and they sang “Happy Birthday.” I had asked her if she wanted a scooter for her birthday. No. She wanted one of those cars for kids. Her feet wouldn’t be able to reach any pedals that might be there. Plus, the answer is NO. Because I said so. That isn’t working very well, either.

So I suggested new shoes. Oh, YES, she wanted new shoes.

We went to Bob Baumhower’s Wings restaurant here in town for their Wednesday Children’s Night. My cousin is the roving magician for those evenings, and he made her a special balloon animal in the likeness of our cat, Patty Cake. Then they brought this gooey powdered sugar beignet dish, with ice cream, raspberry and caramel sauce, and berries; the servers sang “Happy Birthday.”

Then we headed for Target.

She had been asking for “clip clops,” which I took to mean “flip flops.” I could not figure why she, the Queen of Prissy, would want gross shower shoes -- flip flops.

“Ava has some,” she said. “I need some clip clops.”

She has loved her sequined Mary Janes, in red and in silver. They had pink ones! Yea. And best of all, they also had glitter on them.

Two Blings.

Then she saw them. The clip clops. Thong sandals in silver, with what I can only describe as having a fuchsia/orchid colored strap, topped with a butterfly thingy.

“I want these! I need them. These clip clops. Ava has some.”

She wears a size 7 and had grabbed a size huge. I had to go up and down the aisles looking for these clip clops in a 7. I was desperate. Up and down the aisles of shoes. I kept showing her the pink sequined and glittered pink Mary Janes. But, NO.

Finally, a size 7.

She was happier than if it were a Barbie car that really drove.

She took off her shoes and put these on, with the elastic thingy that keeps both shoes in one pair still on them, and off she goes. Walking in very short steps because of the elastic string holding them together.

I was laughing so hard that people turned to look at us.

“We pay our money,” she said, and we did.

Here they are, in their three-Bling glory. She slept with them that night and all the nights since then.

Oh, happiness, thy name is Clip Clops.

Three Bling Shoes

 

 

 

 

 

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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.

 

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