Still Being Grandma

Here is Quincy, the red head on the right, helping me be a volunteer today at Lacoochee School. We are planting a garden and have put in zinnias, black eye peas, peppers, radishes and cucumbers. Everyone had such a good time! Quincy, my horticultural side kick knows all about making a garden. Just today he pulled up a bunch of carrots he planted weeks ago and we put them in the salad. He's eager to share his expertise, and the kids are so welcoming to him, though they are four years older than he is. He is thrilled to be a part of all this, such a social boy.

He has recently left his Montessori school; a bad fit all around, and he will start a new school tomorrow where all the family knows he'll be safe and happy. He was a bit confused today. He thought that this school he was visiting with Grandma was his new school. Eager to do right, he volunteered a lot of information, and when the planting and watering was over he quickly found an unoccupied desk in the classroom. He raised his hand properly to make a comment, and when he saw a boy go into the bathroom and come out, he asked if he could visit the bathroom. (He left the door open, much to the amusement of those third graders.) "Hey, he's little," I said. Then the kids told him to wash his hands, which he did - in the drinking fountain! The other kids told me in great detail about their little brothers and sisters. Much hilarity there.

So, it has been a wonderful and exhausting five days with a four year old. Quincy is never a problem. He eats anything, sleeps twelve hour nights, is never destructive. He talks all the time and asks so many questions! For long periods he is happy with his imaginative play in the doll house, or outside with his trucks and little plastic guys on the edge of the garden I am weeding. He spends lots of time in the barn where he has his post office and delivery system. I always think I can get in a bit of work on my quilts, but there is always a new mail delivery by a small postman in a wagon, or he needs some rubber bands or has a question about armadillos. So I find my nature books and we look it up, distracted along the way by a photo of a man and child looking at something with their head lamps on. We decide we'll buy some of those head lamps and discuss all the stuff we'll see. Another morning shot with nothing purposeful to show for it but the sweet necessity of a loving and curious child.

My pedometer averages 15,000 steps these days. I think most of them are from the trips up and down and up and down the road behind Quincy's little bike. At first Quincy did not want to ride this bike. But we adjusted it so it was friendly and his feet could reach the ground. I found an objective he wanted to reach, a pile of lime rock we use to fill in the potholes on our road. We ride the bike to the pile and Quincy plants some sticks in his "rock" garden. He is thrilled to be able to ride this uncertain bike that wobbles and throws him to the ground sometimes. I am right behind him but as the trips increase he is more and more confident and I am letting go and by the end of this last day he is flying!

His speech is sometimes so unclear we come to an impasse, even after many repetitions. He wants so show me stuff: the gecko on the wall, how he's set up a game board, a restaurant he's made out of little cardboard boxes and small stuffed animals. We make a book with cut out pictures and a stamp pad for the captions. We take several trips in the golf cart each day to check out the nesting sand hill cranes on the edge of the pond. A couple of times we have seen the two very large eggs in the nest as the bird takes a break. "What is the daddy doing now?" asks Quincy. The female we have named Emily seems to be doing most of the work! We scout around and spy Bob, the male, pecking in the dirt. "I think Bob is finding bugs for Emily", I say.

I wonder how his mom, a single parent, can do this? I think back of my own new work life and childbearing and I have amnesia about it. Somehow it gets done.

Loving the silence of the evening, I will go to bed soon. I will miss the last wonderful visit to the grandchild asleep in his bed upstairs when I check his covers and that everything is well for the night. I kiss his sweet cheek close to all those stuffed animals and a bunch of favorite books we've read so many times. I think of that dimple that will show when he sees the waffles Grandpa will make for breakfast.

There are so many new adventures for the next time he's here. But tonight he was very happy to go home to his mother, as were we.

Being Grandma

Here's Quincy, the love of my life, our youngest grandson playing a drum. He's here for five days, and this is the end of day two. We are old, closing in on seventy, still spry (but not sharp as tacks, that description comes later.) He came on the day after we had arrived back from a week in New York City, exhausted from the intensity of so many people and so much wonderful stimulation of art and music and drama and old friends (and heavy colds we were fighting. )

So we are here in this rural paradise of intense green of early foliage, the vegetable garden full of too many vegetables to count. The birds crabbed at us to get those feeders going! Two hummingbirds actually landed on my wrist as I was hanging up their feeder with new nectar.

Quincy went out with us this morning after we hung out the laundry on the clothes line to check out the sand hill cranes nesting on the pond. We could see the two enormous eggs they are hatching in their big nest of sticks and grass surrounded by a mote. Quincy and I had our binoculars at the ready and we watched the parent birds changing places on the nest.

A young four year old listens to a different internal drummer. At the request of "Get your shoes on. We're going out now," he takes ten minutes. He has to find the shoes, and along the way, his attention is distracted by any number of things calling for his attention. We grandparents are learning to be more mellow (more ketchup?), and wait patiently for everything to come together.

Grandpa and Grandma usually lead a purposeful life where we devote blocks of time to our work. All this purpose flies out the window when Quincy is here. We negotiate for time; You take him while fixing dinner and I can get in a half hour to work on that quilt or painting. I'll be on tap for three hours in the afternoon. Andy is great with taking Quincy to do errands and a grocery run. My specialty is the bedtime routine of bath and stories and many hugs.

The most exhausting thing is the negotiation of everything and the "Why's". I appreciate these qualities, but I find it so tedious. You can't just jump into the car and go when you need to. With a four year old, you must first alert him to the plan, find shoes, go pee, find necessary items such as the favorite toy, and water bottle. Then you must install a car seat and insert the child, contorting yourself to click the seat belt. In doing a series of errands you must de-insert the child because, of course you can't leave a kid for even a few minutes alone in a car. After awhile you begin to think that no trip is worth it, so we'll look in the freezer and garden and make do.

After Quincy goes to bed, my life is mine again. I know that tomorrow he'll be awake early anticipating a hearty farm breakfast. I'll go up to his room and pull up the shades. We'll gaze out across the field and pond looking for the possibilities for this day. We'll smell the pancakes, and for once Quincy is out of his pajamas and into his clothes in a flash.

Hostess Syndrome

We are bone weary tonight. We are suffering the effects of Hostess Syndrome, a condition diagnosed by my old partner and best friend, Marie. Here are the symptoms: before your guests appear, you obsess about the cleanliness and feng shui of their accommodations. You plan an array of interesting things for them to do. You plan menus. You look up the weather report so you can be prepared with enough blankets. When the guests actually appear you try to make them feel comfortable and welcome. You fold up that interesting newspaper column you were reading (forget the novel) and forego all naps because.. you are on hostess duty.

But, the thing is, we LOVE all these visitors and cherish their visits. It is all worth it. In this tourist season from Christmas on, we have rarely been without guests. They have been the best. Friends, family, some in enormous numbers, sometimes in couples, some just for the day and evening. We cook, gather things from the garden, take walks, sit on the porch and watch the birds and deer. The kids run around in the fields, fly kites, swim and hurl balls at each other.

I steal away to my studio, hoping for just a few minutes that it won't be populated with the wonderful guests who know that I am generous with my space and supplies.

But, it's true that when ever there is a sniff of guests here, Hostess Syndrome kicks in. Have to think of what dietary programs for each one ( vegetarian, vegan, no red meat, doesn't eat fish, is allergic to certain nuts, hates tomatoes, no pork, can't eat wheat etc.) We try to accommodate everyone. Andy, the cook, is spectacular with these food issues and there is always a wonderful dinner to share.

I am not complaining. I feel extremely blessed to have this enormous circle of family and friends. This season we have had an especially wonderful group of folks here. We have loved the visits from our children and grandchildren. We love their spouses. As I write this, Quincy, our youngest grandson is soundly asleep upstairs in the main house, probably dreaming of breakfast pancakes. (He'll eat anything!) But I am already thinking of events for tomorrow on which to hang the day. Will it be a trip to the train museum, or maybe a trip to the Pioneer Village, or perhaps a visit to Farmers' Feed to look at the baby chickens and turkeys and rabbits, and, if we're lucky they will have piglets for sale as well?

When we are without guests, or have low maintenance ones in the guest house, we have our weekend routine of spending hours reading the papers and working in our studios while listening to the opera. Many guests have contributed lots of effort to the ongoing work of the farm. They have worked in the garden, mowed the fields, cleared trails, and cut wood. We deeply appreciate these guests who are curious and reverent about the natural world that enfolds us.

Quincy, now four years old, is easy. Really, all he wants to do is spend time in the barn where he can climb on the tractor or get out all the cast off cardboard boxes, load them up in his wagon, and pretend he is a UPS delivery man. While this is going on, I can work in my studio, and occasionally get up to accept a "delivery". "Are there any charges?" I ask. Quincy smiles and says,"I don't think so! No charge."

He goes back to his business. No hostess syndrome issues here.

Sometimes a guest will offer me a plum of a gift. One of our latest guests, Claire, offered me some computer help, specifically on updating this blog. A gift of time and expertise like this is priceless.

Though I am weary tonight, I am full of the love these wonderful guests leave us.