The Burrow

There were so many faces in my house yesterday.  This morning, there are only two.   We're delighted that the grandbabies motivated TBG to get up and get moving.  We are planning many trips.   Life is too short to spend it far from those we love. The distance seems greater just after they leave.  I find myself sighing a lot.  The hugs, the hide and seek, the outstretched and seeing comfort from Grandma.... I miss them terribly.  HoneyBunny's plaintive "I want you to come to my home home." Fig bars coexisting with the Persian rugs. Peaches and apples on cutting boards. Princesses on the television. Wipes on every surface and more in a box in the garage.   And their faces.  Smeared with oatmeal or licking the frosting off the beaters; pivoting around a straw or Chew; laughing or telling serious stories but always with those eyes and those cheeks and that hair. I miss those faces.  Here are some to brighten your day. ...

I was glad that Big Cuter was coming to visit.  I needed reassurance and validation and a second opinion from someone familiar with the history.  I needed comfort and solace and support.   I got the comfort and solace and support.  I got hugs and kisses.  I didn't need a second opinion; things were changing rapidly.    The man who couldn't get out of bed was walking without assistance. The man who pointed instead of talking was using his words. The man who was never hungry was eating every 20 minutes. This is why: Berries all over her face Play Doh Cutlery is optional                                                                        Brother made the ferry and cars for Big Cuter 40 some years ago.  What goes around, comes aroun...

TBG has no energy.  I have no oomph. It's hard to get motivated to do anything at all.  Except when the grandkids arrive.  Suddenly, TBG's playing hide and seek from the couch. I hopped out of bed when I heard high pitched giggling... despite the fact that it was 6:15 and we'd stayed up past 11 to watch the first 3 episodes of Reacher. Oatmeal for the masses. Mandarin oranges for snacks.  Chasing a stuffed smile around the couch.  Searching for Cinderella's missing glass slipper. Jumping on Grandpa's bed.  Giving and getting hugs.       Suddenly,  neither of us is tired. 

Drove home in the dark.   Hungry, but this isn't New York City so by 9pm there's MickeyD's or Burger King.  Created a boring but filling turkey sandwich, read Miles Taylor's Substack . Found Arcturus and Vega and went inside; the air was too thick to be enjoyable. I was moping.   Came into the library and saw a new message blinking red on  the answering machine (yes, an answering machine for our landline.... yes, a landline, too). Wondered what the other 14 messages were and listened from the beginning. Magic. Giblet and Little Cuter babbling happily, signing off with a resounding BYE!!! FlapJilly and Little Cuter encouraging Giblet to say hi. Big Cuter and Queen T after their first ultrasound; she's beautiful. The rest were nonsense and easily deleted.  While congratulating my past self for saving them, I replayed my three love notes from the past. I'm smiling and my heart is full.  Like I said: Magic.

Today, he is 8. Fitzgerald, the dog zooming through the birthday photo shoot is oblivious, while I am struck by the passage of time.  Wasn't it yesterday that FlapJilly and I were waiting at home for Mama to push him out?  Now he's hitting home runs. I love the big kid he's becoming,  the kind, sensitive, artistic, responsible, human who runs faster than anyone else, ever, and whose heart is always open and giving.  He was that way as a toddler.  He's that way now.  Watch out, world, for what's coming next.  He's not a baby any more.    

Today is Sister's last birthday before she enters the decade her brother and I have inhabited for a while.  She's never stopped reminding us of the fact that she's the spring chicken in the family.  She claims to have stopped enumerating the years after she turned 39.  You're only as old as you feel  makes a lot of sense to me.  It's how I've tried to live my life - hanging on (with my fingertips, at times) to the energy and enthusiasm, tempering it with the comforting knowledge and experience garnered over the years.     Act as if you are 17 again  just makes me anxious.  I have no interest in going back to my teenage years.  I'm happy to have left the angst and uncertainty and insecurities far behind me.  Adulthood has suited me just fine. Sister, on the other hand, has had a harder time.  I'm sure 17 feels relatively uncomplicated for her.... if anything in her life can be said to be or have been uncomplicated.  Sh...

I spent the last few months watching mothers with their daughters and missing my own Mommy.  Finding this old post was like finding a hug.  Happy Valentines Day from my heart to yours.   ***** This happened on Valentines weekend 12 years ago.   I remember it as if it were today.  Shockingly, G'ma was willing to forgo her post-prandial nap and accompany me to Target.  I hustled her into the car before she could change her mind.  We admired the clouds and she told me I was driving too fast and not stopping for the yellow lights and following too closely and she was my mother again, except for the clacking dentures.  Be careful what you wish for,  I guess. There was an electric cart in the unloading area next to the handicapped parking space and it was calling her name.  She's still got left and right implanted in her memory bank, so directionality wasn't an issue.  She took a turn or two too closely, but the t-shirts didn't ...

She tested positive after FlapJilly's test turned red immediately.  They were both under quarantine and the boys were left to fend for themselves.  SIR kept his girls supplied with food and beverage, while they turned the shower into a spa experience with essential oils in the steamy air.   My girl likes her alone time, but she thrives in the bosom of her family.  Going a full day without snuggles from Giblet is painful; anticipating and then living through day after day of that separation wass heartbreaking.  She was tired and she was bored and she was sick.  Not desperately sick, but day after day not getting better sick. And her mommy was 2000 miles away. This is the time when GRANDMA should spring to action.  Deliveries of chicken soup with matzoh balls......with just the right amount of spring when you bite into them.  Cooking them dinner so the boys can focus on one another and not the missing half of their family.  Cleaning and la...

TBG drove Little Cuter's family to the airport, taking my car and a little piece of my heart away.  I compensated by washing every bit of linen they used.  Blankets and sheets and pillowcases and afghans and other soft and cuddly items were snuggled and sniffed before being tossed in to the washer.  They remain in a pile, two and a half weeks later. If they aren't folded, I can't put them away..... where I can't see them and remember the bodies which were wrapped up in them.... the same sheets and blankets their parents used when they were young.... and those kinds of thoughts have kept them close. Big Cuter left before dawn on Friday, driving straight through to Marin, with LiLou as his co-pilot and ten hours of podcasts to keep him company.  I spent the day with Honey Bunny, savoring every sweet and fetid smelling moment.  She and her mom and lots of luggage flew back the next day.   How is it that I miss poopy diapers? I spent the rest ...

There's been dancing in front of the mirror. There's been popcorn while watching football.   We've been baking and doing minor car repairs on Daddooooo's Testarossa. There's been time for swimming and playing silly games and drinking fancy drinks.  There's been no time at all for writing to you. The big kids and their parents leave tomorrow on a 6am flight.  Big Cuter is taking the week off and will be the primary caregiver for Honey Bunny.  I'll be lonesome and blue but will have time for you.   There's lots to share.  I've been reading some wonderful books, watching some interesting tv, and playing some fabulous games.  I have deep thoughts about our Supreme Court and the freak show that is the Republican Party.  I have lighthearted imaginings. I'm going to spend tonight with all my chickens under one roof, reveling in the wonderfulness of it all.  In the ...

Honey Bunny's presence in my house is prompting many changes in our lifestyle. She's neither an early riser nor a cranky sleeper.  Her father was both.  She takes scheduled naps (whatever happened to never wake a sleeping baby?) and wakes up smiling and happy to see whoever bends over the Pack 'N Play to extricate her.   She's supposed to get a certain amount of calories from a certain amount of breast milk each and every day.  There is a vast supply - newly pumped and frozen.  The frozen is taking over our freezers. Her father and their Audi transported a cooler full of already frozen milk; the colorful bags fill the garage fridge's freezer. The oldest bags are defrosted and used as new bags are pumped and added.  It's a system which includes a never ending cycle of reorganizing and redistributing the food which formerly lived in the cccccold.   I don't have much to do with the process.  I watch in awe.   My only resonsibility...

There are lots of wonderful girls in my life these days. One of them is living in my house.   Notice the very intelligent piggy skulking beneath the high chair.  She knows that Honey Bunny takes great delight in flinging her food after she's had a suck or two on whatever Mommy decided was kid-friendly enough to try.  Lettuce (the rib not the leaves) was a big hit for both of them last night. But there are bigger girls who bring me joy, too.   I snuck away for a couple of hours yesterday to visit Grandma's Garden.  The green buckets in our hanging garden are starting to sprout seedlings.  From the delighted cries of Grandma LOOK!  It's growing!!!  to our shared wonder at the magic contained in a tiny seed, it was a pretty wonderful morning. Not everyone was content to admire the seedlings, though.  There was a major redecorating project taking place, centered on the painted stones made by the 4th grade earlier this year....

There are months at a time where there is no football.  While TBG feels the loss acutely, I only notice that I have fewer opportunities to take out my hearing aids and nestle in my chair with a book, content that my spouse is occupied with something that makes him just as happy. But then August rolls around and there is pre-season nonsense, which I feel quite justified in dismissing.  I try not to schedule events when there are games, but I don't worry when I do.  Once the regular season starts, though, all bets are off.   There are windows of opportunity which suit us both.  There's always the DVR.  We get by, just as we have for 50 plus years.  There was a wonderful interlude when Big Cuter shared our living space and occupied the pillow next to his father on Sundays.  He was a Bears fan, then a 49'ers fan, and, like his dad, he tried not to miss any of their games.   Once he moved away from home, they spent Sunday afternoons and ...

You were a pudgy little baby who's turned into a kid with no hips to hold up the elastic wait pajama pants that are your favorite things to wear. You ask more questions in less time than any human on the planet, which both exhausts and delights your parents.  You often want to call Gramma and Grampa to share a piece of news.  When the news is shared you smile and say That's All  and walk away.  The information was imparted, what else was there to do. You didn't like the feeling of wet bathing suits; there are many adorable-but-not-shareable pictures of you after the birthday party guests had left, naked as a jay bird, and happy as a clam. Having a July birthday means you get to play on the slip-n-slide and the blow up waterfall castle and the big-kiddie pool and the swing and the motorized Jeep and Mustang.... all the things your Mom and Dad have provided, since Pandemica, for fun. It's a nice life, kiddo, surrounded by stuffies and soft blankets galore.  You've...

Queen T brought it up.  I can honestly say that the thought had never crossed my mind; if it did, it didn't make any impression at all.  That it might have been discussed and I don't remember it is improbable.  As I said this afternoon on the video chat, My head was exploding. We were discussing the beautiful baby she calls her own, a child named for the earth and the sky.  Her mother grew up in an SSR; she has no religious traditions to speak of.  (In Ukraine, the day on which one chose to celebrate Christ's birth last year was a political statement.  )  She has embraced my son's cultural Judaism with enthusiasm and introspection.   They want the baby to have a Hebrew name.  She asked if her husband had a Hebrew name.  I couldn't answer.  The thought had never occurred to me.  I couldn't believe the thought had never occurred to me.  How was is possible that 40 years after his birth I had never considered the fact th...

I have the best brother. Don't argue with me.  It's true. He's the glue that binds me to my sister.  She doesn't read The Burrow.  Therefore,  I'm free to say that she's often been a difficult presence in my life without running the risk of her not talking to me for months.  I enjoy her company when she's not being a lunatic.  I'm sure she'd say the same about me.  But every year, Brother creates a conference call so that we can sing her Happy Birthday. He laughs when I promise to hang up when she misbehaves.  He doesn't scold.  He understands. He understands that we are all screwed up in our own little ways, but that the common thread running through us is one deserving of respect.  I'm glad someone is alert to keeping the flame alive. He's a collector of interesting pieces of wood, which he turns into interesting decor or alligators with wheels and a jaw that opens and closes as it rolls along. He's the occasional drop-in-for-dinner...

There are tapes - there are always tapes! - that may send the lying liar to the pokey for espionage.  But rather than revel in the how stupid is he?  realm, I'll leave you with this photo, from the my son, filed under  Times Have Surely Changed . Take Your Daughter to Work Day... (but isn't that every day?)

Flipping through channels, TBG landed on a local station, announcing its 70 years of service to Southern Arizona. He looked at me with horror. I am older than tv. ***** Little Cuter's children are used to being photographed .  They understand posing and smiling and saying cheese.   They are also, at times, total goof balls. ***** And what would the weekend be without a photo of the littlest addition to our family?   Just thinking about her lowers my blood pressure.  Have a wonderful three day weekend, if your life admits such things.  

There are some people who really do make the world a better place, just by existing within it. There are some people whose presence brightens the room, the party, the meeting.   There are some people who elicit Oh, thank God she's here! when a team is formed. I'm lucky enough to have birthed one of them. People gravitate to my daughter; in first grade the girls made a rotating list to keep track of who could sit next to her at lunchtime.  She was nonplussed by the drama.  She just wanted to be. In 6th grade she wondered why the girls all fight with one another.  Don't they realize that if you don't fight with anyone you can sit anywhere you want at lunch? Recruited to participate in Peter Pan, she won the part of Nana and wagged her tail into 5th grade history.  She's not one to push herself into the limelight; that giant dog costume was the perfect foil.   But when she has a good idea and feels that it's being ignored, she raises her voice and ma...

The thing about babies is that they are all consuming.  Honestly,  how could you look anywhere else when this is in the room? That's my only excuse for the delay in posting this morning.   She sleeps and eats and needs her diaper changed. She's not much of a conversationalist. She has no sporting achievements about which to brag. And yet,  she is infinitely fascinating.  Asleep or awake everything is new. I have spent hours watching her watching the black and white checkerboard, wondering what she makes of it all.  We leave tomorrow morning.  My brain will be filled with New College and Ja Morant and all the other mundane nonsense that grown ups think about.   My heart,  though,  will be carrying her closer than close,  no matter how far away she is.