On My Way

It must be love.  There is no other answer.  I am leaving the sunshine and temperatures broaching the 70's for clouds and rain and half the therms.  I'm leaving my exercise routine and my husband and the pile of work on my desk.

The baby awaits and I am ready.  Little Cuter and SIR have unbreakable work commitments and Michelle the Magnificent, their own personal Mary Poppins, is taking vacation.  "Mom, would you be willing to...."

Obviously, she didn't have to finish the sentence.  Grandma is on her way.

I have practical worries. Will FlapJilly have grown so much that retrieving her from her crib will be an undertaking of massive proportions?  I'm sure I'll get her out eventually; I am much stronger than I was the last time I visited, and so is she.  With some help on both sides of the crib slats, I'm certain that I will manage to extricate her from her bed.

At least, that's what I am telling myself as I slip into an anxious sleep these last few nights.

The family has established routines, and I've got most of them down pat.  Saying goodnight to the downstairs furniture, songs and books and then bed.... those I have mastered.  It's the signing that worries me.  SIR learned ASL as his language in high school; I wonder if he ever imagined that he would be teaching it to his own little one giving her a means of communication until her mouth and brain catch up.    

Watching her pull on imaginary udders when she wants milk makes my heart sing.  Her thank you's, most often unprompted since she is very well behaved, are charming.  But she is brilliant and talented and has a gaping void just waiting to be filled with new information and I am not looking forward to the confrontation between an ignorant grandma and an indignant toddler.

I do have a plan, though.  I will take a video of her frustration and send it off to her parents for explication.  Always have a back up plan in place - that's my motto.

TBG is staying home; it will be just the two of us, Grandma and FlapJilly, in the suburbs, watching the world go by.  We'll go to swim lessons one morning and to story time at the library on another. We'll visit with Seret, and FlapJilly can listen as we who raised her mother and her future husband reminisce about the past and plan for their future.  I know that they are not even two years old, but girls can dream, can't we?

I'll cut up veggies and make eggs and spinach and we'll share yummy muffins and clementines and dried strawberries.  We'll walk to the park with Thomas the Wonder Dog, if it's not too cold or slippery.  We'll go to Zoup! for soup.  We will read books and build towers with pillows and we will laugh.  We'll laugh at my feeble attempts to wrangle her hair into pony tails.  We'll laugh as I try to get her out of the crib.  We'll laugh as we play hide and seek and dunk her little pink soccer ball through the retrieved-from-the-neighbor's-garage plastic basketball hoop.

And, mostly, we'll feel the love.

I'm not sure how profound I will be this week; tomorrow's post will be written while traveling and then you may be overwhelmed with baby pictures.  I'm going to try to leave Hillary and Bernie and The Donald and Ted Cruz behind.  My mind will be on more important matters.... does the baby need anything?