Preparing for Bubby

Bubby's guest room awaitsToday I'm in the desert visiting Bubby. On Sunday, he and I will hop on a plane together and head for the mountains. It will be his first plane ride without Mom or Dad, his first visit to Grandma's without Mom or Dad. We're all pretty excited ... yet anxious to find out how our little guy will do being away from his parents for a few days.

Jim -- aka PawDad -- and I made a few adjustments and enhancements to house and home in preparation for his visit:

1. Removed the box spring from the bed in the guest room, to lower the bed to a height that's easy for Bubby to get in and out of.

2. Set up the baby monitor in the guest room so we could hear any sounds in our bedroom ... which is only two doors away but ya never know.

3. Purchased new Matchbox cars and a nifty rug printed to look like a happy little neighborhood with wending roads just the right size for Matchbox cars.

4. Scrubbed and shined -- to the degree you can shine plastic -- some of the old toys left in our shed by the previous owner. Including a fantastic Fisher Price play kitchen set (sink/stove/fridge combo!) last used 15 or so years ago, but perfect for Bubby ... who would have loved such a thing for his birthday but Dad nixed that idea and he got a cute little BBQ grill instead. Well, Dad, Bubby will be playing with a kitchen set at Grandma's because we certainly can't let a good kitchen set go to waste.

5. Stocked up on 100% fruit-juice fruit snacks, goldfish crackers and Vitamin D milk (instead of our typical 1%). Stocked up on diapers and baby wipes, too -- things I've not bought in more than 20 years.

6. Added fresh batteries to two baby glow worms and a Teletubby (a Teletubby which no one in the family knows how it came to be part of our toy stash).

7. Set the DVR to record a few episodes of Yo Gabba Gabba and Chuggington.

8. Purchased the super-size bag of popcorn kernals for popping in the popcorn machine -- a specific request from Bubby. He surprisingly remembers our popcorn machine and its movie-theater-popcorn goodness from his visit in March.

9. Cleared the calendar of anything and everything except hanging out with our favorite little dude.

Our house and hearts are ready. Wish us luck!

Today's question:

When you have guests scheduled to visit, what is the first item on your preparation to-do list?

This post was linked to Grandparent's Say It Saturday.

The town crier

I'm so mad I could spit. But before I explain why, I need to tell you something: I cry. A lot. About all kinds of things. I cry when I see something sad ... or joyous; when I hear stories of huge emotion -- happy, sad or otherwise; when I listen to songs that make the heart swell ... or break; and when I tell someone of such things.

Yep, I'm a crier. Not because of PMS or any other hormonal horrors; it's just who I am, always have been. Everyone in my family knows it, understands it, no longer even skips a beat when mom's a little verklempt and needs a moment to collect herself.

That's the backstory. Now the story:

I was at Walmart Wednesday, picking up items I needed for Bubby's visit: diapers, baby wipes, Danimal yogurt thingees, frozen waffles and more.

Of course while I was there, I just happened to pass the toy aisles all the way on the opposite side of the store and ended up throwing into the cart all kinds of things I didn't need -- but that Bubby would enjoy during his visit: sandbox toys, Matchbox cars, a rug printed with streets for those Matchbox cars to traverse. I even got a pair of pint-sized swim goggles. Not that we'll be swimming while Bubby's here (Grandma can't swim to save her life, much less his) but I bet he'll enjoy wearing them around the house anyway.

So I'm in line with my cart piled high with things I don't really need, things Bubby doesn't really need. There's three people ahead of me, the one at the register being a young mom in her early 20s with a baby in a carrier and a five- or six-year-old boy waiting patiently at her side as many of her goods are being scanned ... in the opposite direction, removing them from her bill. She's holding a handful of cash while produce and school supplies and a little boy's backpack are stacked to the side for returning to the shelves. She silently picks through her cart, deciding whether she and her little ones really need the grapes or the toilet paper, steering clear of the baby formula. The formula's a necessity; other things aren't. Like the little boy's backpack. To which he simply, quietly, watched move out of his grasp when the cashier placed it in the return pile. He just stood there, silently waiting as Mom searched for more ways to pinch her few pennies.

The two people in line between the mom and me -- with my big ol' cart of unnecessary items -- huffed and puffed and shuffled and moaned.

As they shuffled, I looked from the backpack to the boy, back to the backpack, to the mom. I desperately wanted to step forward and tell Mom that I'd pay for the rest, to hand over my debit card for her remaining items, including the backpack. Especially the backpack.

But I didn't. I just stood there. Because I felt the tears coming and I couldn't live with myself if I broke down in tears at Walmart. Even if I overcame the humility and moved forward, the poor young mom wouldn't understand what the cuss I was saying because when I'm verklempt I'm hard as cuss a teensy bit difficult to understand.

So I watched ... then stared down at my cart, scrunching up my face to keep in the tears. I said nothing, did nothing, as the mom finally reached a grocery bill she could afford. Then she and her little ones quietly wheeled away to the parking lot. Without the backpack.

The parking lot! That's what I'll do, I thought. I'll hurry and find her in the parking lot and give her some cash. I quickly looked in my wallet, found $6 and determined to give her it when I headed to the car, to tell her to go back in and buy the cheap little backpack for her son.

But I didn't do it. For when I finished paying -- fighting tears the entire time -- I got to the parking lot, watched the mom buckling baby into the car ... and felt tears and blubbering threatening to erupt. I couldn't approach her. She'd think I'm crazy. And I'd likely offend her -- and scare her little boy -- with my bawl-baby antics over their situation.

So I wheeled right on by and filled my trunk with my junk, just as the tears started down my cheeks.

Then I got in my car and kicked myself all the way home. I was so mad at myself I wanted to spit. But instead I cried. And hid my face when I passed the neighbor. And continued crying while unloading Bubby's bags o' fun.

Then I sat down at the computer to write this because I simply had to let someone know how very mad I am at myself for being a cussin' crier. For taking no action because I'm a crier. For not doing the right thing, the thing that would have made a world of difference to one little boy and his cash-strapped mom. Because I'm a crier.

I just needed to tell someone that. But I couldn't tell it to someone in person.

Because I would cry.

Today's question:

What is something you do despite hating that you do it?

Today's special: Grilled Grandma

This week I feature Joyce as a Grilled Grandma. Joyce is a lovely grandma to 11 darling little -- and not so little -- grandkids, courtesy of her two children.

Click over to Grilled Grandma: Joyce to meet this special grandma and to learn the answers to these three questions:

1. What is the "food" name bestowed upon Joyce by one of her grandchildren?

2. What does Joyce enjoy pouring into her grandkids?

3. What location has Joyce chosen for the memorable picnics she and her family enjoy?

After reading Grilled Grandma: Joyce, don't hesitate to give her a little virtual hug via the comments. And don't hesitate to send me the name and e-mail address of any other grandmas you'd like to have featured as a Grilled Grandma.

Today's question:

What is your favorite place to read?

My answer: In bed, at the end of the day.

Grandma's No. 1

Grandmas are bonkers for their grandkids ... usually. I know there are some grandmas who are of the sort to offer little more than a "meh" when it comes to their grandchildren. I've seen them, met them, talked to them. But I think those are the exception, the women who had the same "meh" response to their own children.

The moms whose kids were -- and likely still are -- a priority, though, those who put raising their children at the tippy top of the list of Important Things To Do in This Life, well, those are the ones who grow up to be grandmas whose hearts glow and gushings flow when it comes to their grandkids. Those are the ones deliriously bonkers for their grandbabies.

I admit I'm pretty much of the bonkers variety. Lately, though, I've worried that all the mushy-gushy love-love stuff I've got going on for Bubby makes my daughters a little jealous, a little worrisome that I love my grandson more than I love them. Deep inside we all still want to be mom's favorite, no matter how old we get, and I have a feeling my girls see my bonkered state for Bubby as proof that he's No. 1 in my eyes, in my heart. Not that they've said anything, would even consider saying anything, for they all love Bubby to bits (especially his mama, Megan, of course). Let's just call it mother's intuition.

Maybe. Maybe it's not mother's intuition at all. It very well could be my own overzealous and usually unfounded guilty conscience kicking in because of all the verbal backflips and whoop-dee-doos I perform when it comes to talking about my grandson. And because I don't want my girls to think they figure any less prominently in my heart since Bubby came along.

The thing is, when it comes to grandkids -- and any grandma knows this, so I'm pretty much talking to the non-grandmas here -- it's such a fresh, new, overwhelming love that it's hard to not gush and glow over it. New mothers feel the very same world-shaking love for their newborn, for their little ones as they grow, for the one, two or eighteen lights of their lives.

The difference, though, is what happens in the years between a baby's birth and that newborn's entry into young adulthood. For those years from newborn to adulthood are filled not only with knee-weakening love and adoration, but struggles and strife and, if we're all honest here, a lot of screaming and crying and heartbreak as the child tugs this way and mom tugs that way, all in the name of growth, independence, maturity and just plain ol' life.

Sadly, those struggles lessen a mom's enthusiasm a tad, diminish the mushing and the gushing. But they never, ever, ever lessen the love and adoration mom has for a child. At least not for this mom; probably not for most moms. Despite -- or maybe because of -- the battles, a mother's love for her child matures as the child matures. It grows into a more quiet love, one no longer eliciting butterflies and balloons and all-out blasting of horns to announce the bliss.

But it once did. With every child. And grandchildren bring all that back -- the butterflies, the bliss and more. Which is why grandmas act so goofy, so obsessed, so gosh-darn twitterpated. Much to their delight, they're getting a second opportunity to relish the fully-enveloping motherly love for a child.

And relish it we do.

Just like we did when our first child was born. And the second. And the third. And more.

Just like we did and do and will with each and every grandchild to come along.

It doesn't mean we love our original little ones any less. It just means we're keeping the enthusiasm in check. For the adult child's sake, of course. Because we understand how much the mushy-gushy PDAs from mom embarrass the oh-so grown-up kids, whether they're 13 or 30.

And we know kisses on the lips and big ol' noogies on the head no longer make children-turned-adults giggle in delight. So we bestow them on our grandkids and eat up the giggles they gurgle out as if they were Godiva chocolates.

But any adult child of mine is more than welcome to a noogie, a liplock, a great big bear hug any time they ask for it. Sometimes even if they don't ask for it.

Because although I don't say it nearly enough, the love, the bliss, the being bonkers for my babies is still there, still burning hot in my head, in my heart.

And cuss the numbers, the ranking systems, the logic; mothers and grandmothers don't believe in such things. What we do believe in, though, illogical as it may seem, is that each and every one of our babies, of our grandbabies, is truly No. 1 in our eyes, truly No. 1 in our hearts.

Today's question:

Other than relationships, in what would you most like to be considered No. 1?

My answer: I'd like to be ranked No. 1 on the bestseller list ... for children's books.

Waste not, want not

Because of a recent trip to the grocery store followed by a patio party in which lots of people left lots of stuff, today I have the following fresh produce in my house:

• black grapes

• red plums

• cantaloupe

• watermelon

• lemons

• limes

• tomatoes

• cucumbers

• onions -- red and white

• zucchini

• summer squash

• leaf lettuce

• carrots

• celery

• bananas

• green peppers

• green onions

• cilantro

• mint

Ugh! All that for just me and Jim!

With Jim not being much of a fruit or veggie eater, looks like I'll be making a visit to Crunchy Betty to come up with ways to use some of the goods on my face and body -- not just in it -- before it all goes to waste.

Today's question:

What fresh produce do you have in your house right now?