4 posts tagged “family”
I have a list of things to do as long as my arm, but the Bug and his dad are sitting on the couch, watching Schoolhouse Rock (which the Bug calls "Rock and Roll High School), so I might as well relax, too.
Let's see, what's been going on? Well, the Bug's musical taste continues to develop. Recently added to his singing repertoire:
- "Maxwell's Silver Hammer"
- "Search and Destroy" (we listen to the original Iggy & The Stooges version, thankyouverymuch), and the Bug stomps around with his guitar and sings "I'm a street walking napalm" We're working on the lyrics).
- "Manchester, England" (yes, from Hair). (He's been known to tell us he's a "genius genius.")
We now return to our regularly scheduled blog.
This morning, we decorated our holiday tree. Shiny, shiny! Photos later. The Bug knew immediately, without us showing him, how to hang the ornaments.
Last Sunday night, at bedtime, the following conversation took place.
Daddy: Tomorrow is a school day. You'll go to school and I'll go to work.
Bug: NO! You'll go to school and I'll go to work!
Daddy: Well, they really need me to come and do my job.
Bug: No! I'll do your job. How hard can it be? You do it!
Guess who slept not in a crib last night, for the first time ever?
Yes, although he won't be two until March, The Bug is now cribless.
Because I'm a lazy, lazy mother, we did not do a big long transition and get a new bed but also keep the crib up for "just in case." That seemed like way too much work for me. Nope, we just talked about the change, and for several days we took the crib mattress out and put it on the floor so The Bug could "practice" during playtime.
Yesterday, The Bug helped me take down his crib (I use the term "help" very loosely), we relocated the last of the items on which he could possibly maim or kill himself, and when it was nap time, I tucked him into his bed. (Okay, okay, it's just his crib mattress on the floor. I told you, I'm lazy.)
As soon as I left the room, he got up and came to the door - where he promptly lay down on the floor and took a nice, long nap.
So yeah. He's not so much sleeping in the bed all the time, but an uneventful night sans crib is a good start!
Just two weeks and a day after my grandmother died, my grandfather followed.
Unlike Grandma, Grandpa was not a keeper of things. If it wasn't useful, it was clutter and he didn't want it. The big stuff, his watch and his rings, was left to his sons, my uncles - which is as it should be. And beyond that, there's not much else.
The last time I visited was after my grandmother died. While I was there, my mother and I started to clean out some dressers and closets. And we found this amazing hand knit hat. I know I have seen at least one photo of my grandfather as a very young man, wearing this hat. At some point, we'll find that photo, and I will frame a copy of it, alongside one of these photos of The Bug wearing his great-grandfather's hat.
When I was 19, I helped my grandmother clean out her house in preparation for a move. She was angry. My grandfather had sold their house without consulting her. The house they had built in the 1950s, where they had lived since my mother was somewhere around 12 or 13. I'm not sure of the year, and really, it doesn't matter. They had lived there for a long time. Grandma had just finished redecorating. And Grandpa went and sold the house.
Mind you, they were just moving next door - so Grandma could look out the window and see her old house every day. Yeah, that won't make a person bitter or anything. But I digress.
Grandma was angry, but rather than admit to being angry, she found a thousand little ways to act out about it, all the while presenting a sweet and smiling demeanor. Because the new house was smaller than the old house, Grandma's main passive aggressive tactic was to talk about all the things she wouldn't be able to keep, because there simply wasn't room for them. She would smile sweetly and say "Well, it's alright, I don't need those old things anymore," and tell me to put the silver tea service or a crystal vase on the "for the yard sale" table.
It wasn't alright. She did need those old things. Each one had a story about her, or someone she loved, and from before I can remember, my Grandma told me all of those stories. She told them again as we cleaned out her house getting ready for the yard sale and move.
It won't be long before it's time to clean out my grandmother's house again. The cancer is assaulting her so viciously that over the last few weeks, she's gone from being quite physically capable to being unable to get out of bed. The Alzheimer's has torn away all her stories. And I was too shortsighted to write them down or record them.
I believe that once my grandmother dies, my grandfather will finally let go, too. (My grandfather is another story, for another day.) And then it will be up to my mother and me to clean out their house. How much will we be able to remember, of all that will be left to us?
