Mopping Up

There are things under my kitchen table that I don't recognize.  I think most of them are (or once were) edible, but I'm not sure. 

The squashed green blobs could have been asparagus in a former life lived as recently as yesterday, and the dried-up white stuff stuck to the hardwoods was probably mashed potatoes.  Here and there lies an occasional meat loaf remnant, and the chip crumbs look like somebody tossed a handful of confetti down there.  And well they should have.  It has been one big party here at Googie's this weekend.

With two birthdays and a late Easter to celebrate, feasting and frolicking have run rampant these past two days.  Thankfully, the rain held off long enough for the traditional back yard egg hunt, which Bootsie, who has gone ambulatory on us since last year, joined in with a mix of awe and relish. 

Once again this year, there was that one egg no amount of kid radar (or adult memory) could hone in on.  As a result, son Teebo will probably run into it--literally--on the lawn mower later this summer, just like he did last year.  Once more there will be that fated crack of impact as the mower blade shatters a pastel hunk of plastic and as, for just a second, a brief aroma of the chocolate candy inside mixes with that of newly-cut grass.  If Bath & Body Works could bottle that scent in a Wallflowers fragrance bulb, I would buy the patent and maybe market it as "l'herbe au chocolat."  Then, it would smell good and sound good both.

For the first time during this wonderful "Wacky Weekend," as I will dub it, I was graced with the presence of four grandkids, with Beenie, nearly four weeks old now, making his first trip over the river and through the woods. (I have always loved the imagery in that well-known holiday song, so I take the liberty of using it metaphorically here.) 

Although in actuality it was a relatively short trip from a subdivision about five minutes away,  it was Beenie's first time to visit our house and to meet his three cousins, ages 1, 3, and 4.  His mama was gracious when the other kids begged to hold him, and showed remarkable self-restraint when they jostled him a bit and when Bootsie sneezed on him twice.  In my warped, perhaps irreverent view, this seemed no less than a christening of sorts, and I consider him thus officially initiated.

And now, back to the task at hand, that of mopping up under the table in this now-too-quiet house.  I can't finish this job without dessert, and there it is--a bit of chocolate cake and a renegade smudge of ice cream that probably escaped from the enthusiastically wielded spoon of Pooh or of Sooby.  Over  yonder may be a wayward drop of candle wax that will most likely require a scraping tool. 

And what's this under the microwave cart?  It would appear that a miniature Elmo has parked his little blue convertible just out of sight, where he was overlooked during the housewide reconnaisance mission that always precedes the departure but is never entirely successful.  It's back up to the toybox for you, buddy.  This party is over.

A little slower getting back up off my hands and knees than I used to be, I give the floor beneath the table a final, cursory inspection.  It will do for now, until I get a chance to bring out the heavy cleaning artillery.  With Elmo in one hand, I place the other one lightly on the corner of the table for balance and recall the clinking of silverware and the cacophony of voices that rose so recently around it.

Although I may not have recognized everything I recently wiped off the floor underneath this table, I do recognize the importance of every stray crumb that landed there.  This thing we call family happens in miniature, comprised of moments and morsels, and I will make sure to keep my bucket and rag always at the ready.

Potato Head Elmo

There is no doubt that eighteen-month-old Bootsie recognizes me when she sees me on Skype.  Her eyebrows arch with excitement, and her eyes light up.  If her mama is holding her, she lunges for the computer screen  (Clarification: Bootsie, not Mama, lunges.  Darn those ambiguous pronouns anyway.) Then, in her most fervent little voice, she cries out to me that special name I have come to accept as her fondest greeting:  "MEL-mo!"

I may have to resort to therapy to accept the fact that, in the mind of my youngest granddaughter, I am inextricably associated with a furry little red muppet that talks in a high-pitched voice and giggles a lot.  Unfortunately, it is my own fault.  From the beginning, Bootsie has had a special affinity for the mechanical singing "Pizza Elmo" that I snatched up at a garage sale last summer.  She knows every book on my shelf that has a picture of Elmo somewhere among its pages. 

In fact, she is so crazy about him that, at some point during each Skype session, I have to retrieve him from the toy room and let him and his cheesy little round buddy have their moment in front of the webcam.  When the pizza sings, I zoom him in for a close-up, bemoaning my lost potential as a movie director.  Meanwhile, 180 miles away, Bootsie bobs her head back and forth and claps her hands and thinks life can't get much better.  No doubt about it, Bootise loves her Mel-mo.

You would think I'd have learned my lesson.  But, au contraire, mon ami, if what I did yesterday is any indication.  I prefer to blame this on fate rather than personal stupidity, but right there in front of me on a garage sale table lay the most intriguing specimen of Elmo-icana that I have ever seen.  It was Elmo designed like Mr. Potato Head, with holes to hold different body parts from feet to noses to ears.  What's more, Elmo talks to you while you mix and match the various additions.

You put a long, gray trunk on him, and he says, "It's Elmo-fant!"  A pig snout will elicit an "Oink, oink" and a giggle.  Add a chicken beak/comb and you will be tempted to check underneath Elmo for an egg.  I have played with him for two days now and still have not heard all the different things he says.

Elmo and his eighteen removable parts came in a Zip-loc bag for a bargain price of $1.  Even his batteries are still going strong.  So, I ask you, how could any self-respecting Googie have resisted this one?

I can't wait to introduce Bootsie to Potato Head Elmo.  The older kids will like him too, but it is Bootsie who will get the biggest kick out of him.  When she puts on his elephant foot and he says, "That tickles," she will giggle right along with him, and that will be a joy to hear.

I see only one problem with the situation:  I predict that, down the road, this new Elmo may further monopolize my Skype time.  Oh well, look on the bright side.  This can only mean more opportunity to practice with the webcam--and, perhaps, more money for the shrink.

Googie's Baby Steps

As I was cleaning off my desk today, a little article printed atop a pink notebook graphic caught my eye.  Closer examination revealed it to be a page I had torn from AARP The Magazine at a busy time last November with the intention of reading it later.

I finally got around to doing that today.  Barely three paragraphs long, the article, "Baby Steps" by Christine Ianzito (p. 14), discusses the growing nationwide demand for grandparenting classes targeting grandparents-to-be who want a refresher as well as an update on how to best care for newborns and their families.

As the grandmother of a brand-spanking new baby boy born just two weeks ago tonight, I couldn't help wondering what advice I might give if I were to teach such a class.  My ruminations led me to five suggestions I would recommend to my counterparts for whom the grandparenting experience is pending.

1. Snuggle.  Get your hands on that baby as soon as you can, and hold him every chance you get.  (Do, however, try to avoid snatching him out of the arms of the delivery nurse or you risk getting one of those Nurse Ratchet glares.)  It won't take you long to remember the soft, warm feeling of his little head against your chest, where he can hear your heartbeat, or in the crook of your arm, where you can admire the utter perfection of his features while he sleeps.
2. Pamper.  Buy him stuff, with the limit being either the sky or the resources of your wallet.  Buy stuff for his mama and daddy.  The bank is paying you nothing for your money right now anyway.  At this point, there isn't another investment that looks better than this one.  Think of yourself as Daddy Warbucks.  Orphan Annie has arrived at your mansion, and all extravagance is utterly justified.
3. Obsess.  Think about this baby during your every waking moment.  Dream about him as you are drifting off to sleep.  Have pictures at the ready in your billfold, your digital camera, and your cell phone.  Insist that all your friends look at them.  Stop strangers on the street and make them look, too.  Point out Uncle Leon's cheekbones and Great-Grandpa's dimple.  If your viewers' eyes glaze over after a while, view that as unfathomable awe.
4. Invade.  Go to the baby's house at every opportunity.  Do not--I repeat do not--wait for an invitation.  Right now, the new parents are preoccupied, sleep-deprived, and not in their right minds.  They may not even realize they want you there, but you know better.  However, if you consider invade too strong a word, try infiltrate.  That is sneakier and more commensurate with grandparent personalities less aggressive than mine.
5. Love.  You will not have to work at this one.  It will come naturally.  Play it for all it's worth.  Your grandchild will love you back, and you will experience nothing more special than that in this world.  

I wouldn't be a good teacher if I failed to provide you with an easy way to remember my five-step program for new grandparents.  So let's use the first letters of those key words and make an acronym out of them.  Although it may not be quite what Christine Ianzito had in mind, this is the SPOIL method, and it is guaranteed to work every time.   

On "Wonderment"

Let me begin with a little poem inspired by Beenie's arrival last week on the first day of spring.  And then, if you are so inclined, permit me to talk about it a little bit.  Forgive me, but I am in the mood to trip on that wonderful creative process that takes place when a writer gives birth to a poem such as this one.  I hope you will enjoy coming along.

      Wonderment

Sunlight slants strangely
against the north fence
today as faint scents
of lilac ride the air;

and that woodpecker
hammering vibrations
down the furnace pipe--
how long has he been there?

Have tulip petals always felt
of velvet?  Have they always smelt
of rain, and daffodils of earth?
Are strawberries sweeter this year?

Have I changed somehow?
Does some new miracle
surge within me now
that you are here?

That's it.  Four four-line stanzas that move from a basic observation to a series of questions that lead the poet to contemplate changes perceived both in the natural world and internally in response to the coming and influence of someone special.  But I totter on the verge of growing too technical here, so let me regroup. 

What I tried to achieve here is a simple love lyric that avoids the pitfall of triteness.  Athough it is specifically about the birth of my grandson, it wouldn't have to be.  For others, it could work just as easily in reference to any significant person who enters their life and changes their outlook for the better.  Hopefully, this gives the piece universality; that is, meaning for a variety of people in a variety of circumstances.  Depending on the situation, the "you" of Line 16 could be, among other things, a lover, a friend, or a long-lost relative just as easily as a new child or grandchild.

I have tried to avoid a sing-song texture by varying linear meter and making the rhyme irregular, subtle, and unobtrusive.  For example, if you look at the end words of the lines, you will find ten of the sixteen lines rhyming with another, but only randomly.  This, plus the other sound devices of alliteration (repeated initial consonant sounds in neighboring words) and assonance (repeated vowel sounds), should enhance the fluidity and the auditory interest of the piece when read aloud.

Finally, just a brief comment on imagery--the use of words that evoke the senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch.  You should find references to all of these in the poems's first three stanzas, with Stanza 3 being the richest.  The concreteness afforded by this imagery sets the stage for the more abstract inner change ending the poem in Stanza 4.  Because imagery is based on sensory experiences shared and thus understood by human beings, poets depend on it to recreate feelings that readers can identify with.  In this piece, because of its timing and occasion, all the imagery is spring-related.

Enough.  If you have made it to this point, thanks for sticking with me.  I hope the short analysis helps you better understand and appreciate "Wonderment." 

When I was thinking about starting a blog a year ago, one of the topics I considered was poetry because I love it so much.  But in the end, I decided to base it on the grandkids because I love them more.  But upon occasion, a piece like this allows me to indulge my love for both.  That, my friends, is about as good as it gets.   




       

Sooby in Shin Guards

Sooby met her first day of soccer practice with considerable apprehension.  "I will never be able to kick the ball that high," she lamented.  "It's just too far."  Turns out, she was imagining a field with basketball goals at each end.  She knew it was against the rules to use her hands, and she just couldn't imagine booting a ball high enough to make a basket.

Soccer is a game we know well in this family.  Son Teebo began playing when he was seven and pretty much dribbled his way through his childhood years and into four years of high school and traveling ball.  Generally his job was to sweep the backfield, the final line of defense before the goalie.  It was a position he relished for its crashes and clashes and overall general mayhem.  Hopefully, Sooby and her four-to-six-year-old teammates won't display this level of competitive killer instinct.

Taught judiciously in the early years, the game of soccer, it would seem, offers some important life lessons.  Here are the ones I hope Sooby learns, at least for now:

1. Run through the grass every chance you get.
2. If you get tired, sit on the bench for a while.
3. Keep your hands where they're supposed to be.
4. Keep the ball under control.
5. If you get in a bind, pass the ball off to a teammate.
6. If your teammate gets in trouble, help her out.
7. Watch for loose balls: these are opportunities.
8. Keep an eye on the goal ahead; try not to get sidetracked.
9. If you miss your goal, try again.  It is hard to hit for a reason.
10. Adapt your strategy when others try to keep you from making your goal.
11. Remember to use your head.
12. Try not to trip anyone.
13. If you fall down, get back up.
14. If you get dirty, don't worry; mud washes off.
15. Stop when you hear a whistle.
16. Yellow and red cards may be pretty, but try to pass them up.
17. Don't kick anyone on purpose, especially people dressed like zebras.

These are lessons that, with only slight modifications, should serve little soccer players well as they begin their school years.  I am looking forward to watching Sooby run carefree down the field in her little red shin guards.  If she happens to do that with a ball in the immediate vicinity, then all the better.  

The Transformative Years

We hear a lot from the field of psychology about the "formative years"--that magical period of early childhood when, supposedly, kids are molded in ways that create permanent effects on their psyches and their personalities.  This notion touts each new mind as a tabula rasa, a blank slate, to be shaped or "written on" with only the utmost care by those of us who aspire to be parents and teachers. 

Since a brand-spanking new Big Chief tablet imposes more responsibility than most of us feel capable of taking on anyway, I wish to propose an alternative to this long-held philosophy.  I submit that, rather than formative, early childhood consists of transformative years, and it is the kids rather than the adults around them who put the writing on the wall.

The idea of transformation is certainly no newbie to most of the kids I know and love.  Sooby, for instance, is an expert on the subject.  She earned that credential at the ripe old age of two, when she began to study The Document of Cinderella and The Treatise of the Wizard.  Many times now, Sooby has watched as the bicycle-pumping Miss Gulch turns into the Wicked Witch of the West amid a cloud of swirling debris just outside Dorothy's window.  She knows what a fairy godmother can do with a few friendly mice and a pumpkin patch when Cinderella really, really wants to go to the ball.

Pooh, too, understands transformation, whether it involves Clark Kent emerging from the phone booth as Superman or Bruce Wayne assuming his crime-fighting persona as Batman.  He loves to play-act, and often transforms himself into Horace the dog thief in 101 Dalmatians or the wicked Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty.  It is nothing for a plastic tote to morph into a boat or a bulging pillowcase to become Santa's bag of toys.   

However, in spite of the transformational prowess of my two older grandkids, I would have to give the prize of the moment, hands down, to little Beenie.  In just two days, he has sucessfully transformed every room of the house where he lives.  It no longer looks like the house where two young professionals, married two years come July, set up housekeeping in their starter home about a year ago.  Oh, the nice new furniture is still there, and nothing it missing.  But it is what has been added of late that constitutes transformation in its truest sense.

No room is unaffected by the fact that Beenie has arrived and set up shop.  A pack 'n' play occupies former dead space in the family room, and a high chair snuggles up to the kitchen table.  Most dramatically, a small third bedroom has been transformed into a nursery.  Elsewhere around the house, a bottle sits here, and a burp rag sprawls there.  Here lie some blankets; there is a binky.  The decor of the house cries out in joy that a baby lives there.  In one skillful swoop, Beenie has taken over his house and commandeered our hearts.

The formative years, I have concluded, are an illusion and a joke.  The slates to be written on are ours.  Sooby, Pooh, Bootsie, and now Beenie grasp the implements of writing in their tight little fists.  Write away, kids.  The stories you will pen are precious.

The Trifecta

As I begin to write this, it is 11:50 p.m. on March 20, 2012.  I wanted it to post on that date, but I realize I am most likely going to miss it by minutes.  That is OK, because March 20 has been a trifecta.  For me, there has never been and likely never will be a day quite like this one.  Therefore, I will savor these last few minutes even as the clock ticks its way past midnight and I type away.

I like that word--trifecta.  I see that it means "a run of three . . . grand events."  That is the perfect way to describe the day that is just now passing out of my reach.  Here's why.

As you know, it is the first day of spring.  Although it has been a rainy day here in my neck of the woods, there is always something about the coming of spring that suggests newness, freshness, and promise.  Everyone's grass is taking on that vibrant spring hue. The air is warm, and the landscape bursts with redbuds.  The whole outdoors sings with expectation.

It was thirty-one years ago today that Pa-pa and I got married on this first day of spring.  I realize that it may not be every young couple's dream to get married on their lunch hour, but we did just that.  He pulled his best man away from his potato planting, and I surprised my matron of honor with a phone call just as she was settling into an otherwise routine workday at J.C. Penney's.  "Do you have plans for lunch?" we asked them both.  Instead of what they had planned to do that day, they watched the two of us step out in the hope of a bright future together.  The rest is a rich history that came to include two children and three grandchildren.

Until tonight, that is.  Tonight we welcomed Beenie into our world.  After giving his mama a good night's work, our fourth grandchild came a week early to celebrate our anniversary with us.  He weighed 8 pounds and 4 ounces, and was 20 1/2 inches long.  He arrived at 10:18 p.m., which is why I am officially a day behind with his birth announcement.  I just got home from the hospital and I am falling-down exhausted, but this is a story that has to be told now.

Beenie is a healthy, beautiful little boy.  I can't wait to hold him tomorrow, or, I guess I should say, later today.  I am anxious to rub the soft, dark hair and touch those tiny, slim fingers.  I want to breathe in the sweet scent of him and tell him I love him.  He has to know that he has a Googie, and she has plans for him.

If you know me personally or if you have followed this blog long, you know that we lost my dad to lung cancer last September.  The winter has been long.  But with the day just past, spring has arrived.  We celebrate our marriage, and we welcome another grandchild.  What a day this has been!  It has reinforced for me how, in the midst of the turmoil and unrest that make up this world and the pain that so often accompanies this life, there is, after all, hope. 

Life renews itself in spite of it all.  It always has.  Sometimes it takes a trifecta to remind this old Googie of that, and I rejoice.