The Village

Our grandson Quincy celebrated his second birthday on Saturday. His moms put on an amazing bash, an open house in the afternoon. The table was laden with delicious food, beautifully prepared by my caterer daughter-in-law; my daughter had made a fish cake, colorfully decorated and oozing with child-friendly frosting, and there was a giant cooler full of drinks. The guests ranged from grandparent age to babies not yet confident on their legs.

What all fifty of us had in common was Quincy, this most fortunate of children raised and loved by our village. This child was desired and planned for, conceived by artificial insemination. It was to have been a perfect pregnancy. The ultrasound decisively said the baby was female. But in the last few months of it, it became apparent that there was something terribly wrong. My daughter was covered in an angry rash, the baby wasn't growing enough. She went to specialists and no one knew what was happening. She is an information specialist by training and tracked down what turned out to be the correct diagnosis of Choliostasis (sp?), life threatening for mother and child, so she immediately checked in to the hospital to deliver Quincy by C section, a month early.

Andy and I were in New York City doing a long planned whirlwind of urban culture. I remember the constant cell phone calls, updates on everybody's condition. Then, when we were in a restaurant near Lincoln Center I came close to praying. The waiter noticed our stricken faces and as he did the phone rang again. One of the aunts on the line to tell us that, though it was hairy, the baby had been born, and it seemed that our daughter and the baby would live. Everyone in the restuarant cheered. I cried. "But," said the aunt, "there's this problem. The baby is a BOY! It's not Olivia, but Quincy."

After dinner we went shopping for preemie clothes-in blue. We went to the wonderful opera then, feeling incredibly fortunate. The idea of losing a daughter had been too much to bear.

And now, seeing this strapping two year old, far from that tiny widget he was back then, I rejoice. At his party he was serene and focused. He never melted down as one expects birthday boys and girls would. He was most interested in playing with his old familiar true toys. As grandma I think him to be the cutest child on earth (as I think of my other grandchildren are too.)

What's special about Quincy is that he lives here in our village, surrounded by family and friends who care about him and are helping him grow to be the man he's meant to be. Every week, Quincy is a part of some sort of village gathering. We share meals, fun times at various homes or at the library story hour, or at parks and museums.

We are the grandparents and we love and appreciate all the help from our village of family and friends in raising this wonderful boy.

Counting the Days

When I was working full time the other staff members had a joke that no one should be in the parking lot on Friday afternoons or they would be flattened. They knew I would be so eager to leave town nothing would keep me from it. I knew that if I left before the 3:00 rush I could pick up the dog and cruise home without major delays. I was counting the days; Friday night and I could be at the ranch in time for supper. And then there was Saturday and Sunday, all mine. Friday late afternoons there was time to check the gardens and the pastures. After supper I could go out in the dark and see if there were alligators in the pond or animals next to it. Away from the city apartment with the blaring streetlights and traffic noise, I could sleep well at the ranch in the lullaby of frogs and whipporwills.

In the weeks of vacation days I would say a private litany counting the days I had here at the ranch.

Even in retirement, I still count the days. Right now we are counting down to three days from now when we get on a plane that will take us to Paris for a two week vacation.

But really, I am counting the days until we return. I think about the vegetable garden. Will those tomatoes be ripe when we get back? Will the Mexican bean rollers have decimated those beautiful rows of bean plants? Will the lettuce be totally out of control and bolted? Will the cucumbers have wandered all over the row? And will Curley, our bull, behave himself, do what he's supposed to do, and not taunt our neighbor's bull?

I am loving the thought of going to Paris. We have rented an apartment in the Latin Quarter and we'll be there with family and friends. None of us are taking cell phones or computers, a bold move. If I have an outrageous need to be connected, no doubt I can find the neighborhood Pakistani internet place.

On day eleven, as on all vacations, I have a kind of melt down of homesickness. And I will count the days until I come home.

Family First

It hasn't always been this way; putting my family first. When we moved to Florida my oldest son was eight. "I'm glad you aren't always on the phone," he observed. Of course, I hardly knew anyone to be with on the phone those first few months. I wasn't working outside the home, but I was itchy to start. Kids hate that ringing phone which means that their parent will be temporarily lost to them.

Soon,, the boys were in school, and I was working in their school, and on the phone a lot to other parents. Life took on a rhythm. Eventually, I began to work at a new school; it became my life's work. When our oldest child was twelve, we had another child, a daughter, who went to work with me from day one.

But, even though I was physically there a lot of the time for the three kids, I was caring for many others too. The kids knew that I didn't work for the Little League with a glad heart. I was not fascinated to watch unending laps swum for the swim team. I found night time high school basketball pretty tedious,(except for the time when four players lost their retainers and were scrabbling around on the gym floor). I absolutely could not be in the cheering section very often for bike races. When our daughter and niece were doing gymnastics I never watched what they were doing because I was correcting papers from my school kids. The best that could be said was that, apart form driving everyone everywhere, I showed up.

I had an afterschool homework group for my sons and some of their friends and they generally stayed for supper. We had a generous household, full of kids. But what I know in my heart of hearts is that I didn't have enough time for each of them.

Now that I am retired I have time - and there is never enough of it. Family still wants a piece of me. I think of each of my six grandchildren. Only one lives nearby so he gets a lot of attention from us. I try to connect with the others very often with phone calls, e-mails, gifts, visits. I had no idea how much time this takes!

We need to make visits to the far places our children and grandchildren live. I still have that old feeling of needing some unfolding time for us after all these years of working full-tilt. There is unfinished business for us, the parents, apart from our children and grandchildren.

Family comes first. They know this. We are not yet old enough for our kids to have to care for us:they would be horrified to think of it now. They know that there is a window of time when parents can freely be parents and grandparents, strong but accepting.

Andy and were discussing our youngest grandson today. What we notice about him is so detailed compared with what we noticed about our own kids! I love the way life gives one second chances to attend to important stuff.

Armadilloes, scourge of my yard

Lola is up at the main house, barking ferociously in that tone I know is, "I see an armadillo, and I will bark it to death!"

Now that it is cool and dry most evenings, the armadilloes are out foraging for grubs and worms. They would like to work in my vegetable garden but I thwart them by burying fence several feet deep and keeping the gate locked. It has taken me years of trying just about anything to keep these critters from devastating the lettuce, digging up the carrots, and making mayhem in the beans in their nosey search. By spring our yard looks like a mine field with all those excavations. And you could easily break a bone stepping the wrong way into their holes.

Warren calls armadilloes 'those possums in fender skirts'. These nine banded armadilloes are all over Florida and the gulf coast, gradual migrants from Central and South America. They have very few predators, except for developers. Since we are developer-free, we have a lot of armadilloes. Yes, they are sort of cute in a prehistoric way. They seem quite oblivious as they jump up in the air as you approach, or never notice and keep on snuffling along.

In addition to the physical barrier of the fencing, I am a trapper. (I have tried repellants and they don't work!) I have two have-a-heart traps I set each night. And I always hope the traps will be empty in the morning because I have trouble freeing the prisoners. I hope that Andy will be here to do this chore. At the very least I hope we have trapped only armadilloes, not foxes or opossums or raccoons or feral cats, which we do from time to time.

We drive the traps down the lane a mile or two and open them near the property of our only distasteful neighbor. Actually, I think the armadilloes always come back!

Last night when Lola and I were out for her bedtime pee, an armadillo was spotted next to the vegetable garden. Lots of barking! Lola cornered a pretty big one, lots bigger than she is. Lola stabbed it with her sharp little dashchund nose and I drummed on it with my flashlight. (They are so dumb.) Finally, it scuttled out into the pasture and we could all call it a night.

I am in constant battle with these creatures. I don't want them in the garden or digging up the yard. Yet, I am beguiled by their soft grunts, their totally amazing shape, and their endurance. I love to watch the quadruplet babies who scuffle among the leaves in back of my studio.

Digging

We are out in the 90 degree October morning digging trenches for a new irrigation system. Warren, our dear neighbor and the farm manager, appeared with many yards of pvc pipe and pipe dope, cutters, elbow joints, spiggots. He had called earlier to tell us that he couldn't make it today for this project because he had to fix his mama's screen porch, so we were enjoying reading the papers on our porch.

The trailer rattles up with all the supplies and Warren announces that he couldn't deal with Mama and her boyfriend (he's eighty- three) and the boyfriend's daughter. As always, I am mesmerized by Warren's monologue, his salty complaints about his family, what he said, what she said, everything told with a twinkle in those amazing blue eyes. I think Warren could do these monologues as a stand-up comic. I tell him so. He knows that we appreciate him. I refer to Warren as the hydrologist and there is lots of fun banter. But we get to work with spades.

We have been on this property for more than fifteen years, built several buildings, and put in a lot of pvc pipe and electrical conduits. No one ever made a map of exactly what pipes were where under there so we need to dig this thing by hand so we don't split any crucial lines. We locate where the water line should come from the pump. As we begin to dig, we find not only huge roots, but mysterious pipes and conduits. We find old snuff bottles, trash, even a few rocks and an intact flower pot. Warren, as the chief hydrologist, knows exactly where the lines need to be cut and spiggots installed. Andy and I keep on digging. My eyes are on the prize of having a truly convenient watering system for the vegetable garden and the flower beds.

The sandy soil is very dry, not hard for spades to cut through. But it's hot and hard work. There is so much of it! I think of the kids in that wonderful novel, "Holes". As it gets hotter and harder and buggier, think of those prisoners who dig for miles with teaspoons to get out of jail. We are slapping the mosquitoes, mopping our faces, and fending off the lovebugs.

We drink lots of water and I ask Warren how he got to be so competent.

I think you learn a lot about a person working side-by-side on a project. He told me how he worked with his dad, and then how he coached his son, telling us insightful funny anecdotes. Now his son is an incredibly 'can do' person. Our children are also very competent; our sons can not only do their day jobs, they can also build, plumb, do electrical stuff, fix cars, cook. No task fazes our daughter, from starting a business to installing a bathroom to being a wonderful hands-on mom.

Finally, after five hours or so of really hard work, the project is done! We turn on the water, all the spiggots have great pressure, I am incredibly grateful to these two men who love me and know how much I have wanted this. I hug Warren hard.

Tonight we are tired dogs, ready to flop down and pant with that delicious physically spent feeling of having put in a heavy day of creative work.

Most of our friends and family do not 'get it' that we who have one foot in the urban worlds of St. Pete, New York, Washington, Paris, Rome, also need to be viscerally connected to the rural life of central Florida. To be here we need to mow the fields, grow vegetables, take care of the cows, and enjoy the life cycles of the hummingbirds and the spiders. We need to watch the sand hill cranes dance, and mark the changes of seasons listening to the whiporwills or noticing when the chimney swifts come and go. We need to have the time to introduce our youngest grandchild to fish and lizards and ant lions. We need to have our older grandsons get familiar with the rural life. All this takes time. There is never enough of it.

The moon is full, and though I am so tired after a day of digging trenches, I will walk out, amazed at the long moon shadows on the pastures, and I will rejoice in my good fortune.

Caring for our Kids

O.K. this is a grandma blog. But let's think about Mark Foley. Everyone believes that this man did a really disgusting thing, betrayed the trust of his constituants and of young people. This issue has gotten into the swarmy political swamp. Democrats are gleeful and Republicans are apologetic.

Let's be real. Our politicians of both parties lie to us, protect their power, and are less than ethical, with the exception of a few. I think of Jimmy Carter, for one.

Having been a teacher for forty years, a parent of three, a grandparent of six, and a mentor of dozens of kids, I am aware that these things are not simple. I am enraged and greatly saddened everytime I read in the papers that yet another child has been killed at the hands of people who are meant to protect them. I am saddened that so many parents do not cherish and care for their kids. It is especially hard to think about situations in which our vulnerable children have been abused.

One of my sisters has a daughter now living in an abusive situation; I believe they call it the Stockholm syndrome, and she and the kids are hostage to the power of the man in the family. We try to wend our way through this, letting my niece know that she can call on us at any time

Another friend had a nanny who was abusive to her kids. She did not know this for a long time but it has marked them.

My daughter-in-law's father is now in prison for the abuses to his daughters. I think that so many of you out there have visceral knowledge of the abuse of power from an adult to a child.

In the United States we are still so weird and puritanical about sexual matters. We cannot speak of some things, yet we let our little girls be such sexual beings by dress and technology!

Maybe the sad case of Mark Foley will get a dialog going. Here was a lonely guy who didn't have the requisite family and he wanted the affirmation of youth? We fall back on religious stuff, but I always wonder if our religions protest too much?

I am suspect of politicians who have no visible family! How can they know about what it is to love to distraction their kids and grandkids?


There are so many terrible abuses our young have to endure! So many of our kids were abused by priests in their Catholic schools, many others by their families. What are we to think?