Grandmothering Toddlers

Tyler, Jack  and Pogo the dog


As you know, I spent all last week in Connecticut babysitting two of my grandsons -- I have seven grandsons, actually, and two granddaughters -- and these are the two youngest grandsons, 1-1/2 years and 3 years old, that I babysat. Before I go any further, I have to ask. Why is it they call it babysitting? No one actually sat during a twenty-four hour period, them or me, that is, until I put "Dora The Explorer" on TV or had them safely strapped in their chairs for meals. Oh, and they also sat in the bathtub for a few minutes while they were being bathed, although that's actually not true, either ... did you ever try and wash a fish?  And I'm convinced that toddlers don't have feet ... they have invisible wheels.

Funny, when I was a young mother of three daughters, I actually got pretty good at it by the time my youngest was a toddler. I could juggle every task that needed to be done, do it, and still have plenty of play time with them. As a matter of fact, it was probably the time of my life I most enjoyed ... and raising my daughters is still the one achievement I am proudest of.

Ahhh, but I digress ... now don't get me wrong, I had the time of my life last week. I love those little boys with all my heart -- but I have to admit that I've never felt so totally short on brain cells. I woke up the first morning to calls of "Graaammy, I'm uuuup ..." and it was suddenly like I had never had a child before -- ever. Before my first cup of coffee, I honestly had no idea, whatsoever, what I was supposed to do. Thank God, my daughter wrote everything down ... sheets and sheets and sheets of blessed instructions, just in case.

I also didn't realize going in, that grandmothers have far less energy than young mothers do ... and muscles hidden on and around their bodies that working out at the gym and the treadmill, for some reason, didn't quite touch. At the end of each day, it was a monumental decision whether to soak in a tub with a glass of wine, or just fall into bed sore and exhausted.  Most nights, the bed won ...

I am happy to report that by the end of the week, things had begun to fall into place. I learned to get up a half hour before they did and have my coffee, which allowed my brain cells to multiply and my organizational skills to reconnect, (as did my patience) -- even my sore muscles ceased their screaming, after coffee ...

Someday, I want to write about the new language I've learned,  "Toddler-Speak" ...

Children's Halloween Poem: Mr. Bones

Mr. Bones

Mr. Bones

by CJ Heck

I was looking up some haunted stuff
because it’s Halloween.
I saw black cats, ghosts and witches,
and all of them looked mean.

Then I saw your picture.
You’re an awesome skeleton!
I read that we are just like you,
deep down beneath our skin.

Before you got turned inside out,
did you really look like me?
I think I'll call you Mr. Bones
since bones are all I see.

Two more questions, Mr. Bones ...
through your bones, I just see air.
When you walk do you make noise?
Are you cold because you’re bare?

Mr. Bones, oh Mr. Bones,
you have a scary mouth
and there’s nothing where your eyes should be.
You're so spooky wrong-side out!

Poor, poor Mr. Bones,
it’s sad you have no skin ...
I guess that I'd look frightening, too,
with my inside out, my outside in.


[From the book,  "Barking Spiders 2" (the sequel), by CJ Heck]


"A writer soon learns that easy to read is hard to write." ~CJ Heck

A Rant on Work Ethics

I guess you could call this blog a short rant against what I see as a growing problem -- the slow demise of the work ethic in our society. In talking with a manager at a slow fast-food restaurant the other day on my way back from Connecticut, I was surprised to learn that turnover is high, higher than ever before. He told me kids these days up and quit for anything: asking them to remove facial piercings, not allowing them the exact days off that they want, or if they're even spoken to about poor work habits. Sad, very sad.

The other day, a friend relayed something that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. She routinely works with several mentally-challenged adults at a group home nearby, licensed by the state of Pennsylvania. The work is challenging, difficult at times, and always involves huge responsibility, including giving out the proper dosage of medications, dealing with copious and varied behaviors, and continually monitoring client safety throughout the entire multi-day shift.

When it was time for her shift to end the other night, and the next shift to come on the clock, she said she could smell alcohol on the breath of one of the young males assigned to take over for her. My friend was faced with an uncomfortable decision -- whether or not to report the young man to management.

Then, last night, I had an opportunity to be introduced to a young lady in the parking lot outside a grocery store I was heading into. She had been Robert's co-worker, until being let go for making some bad decisions, drugs and alcohol being only one part of them. She was obviously strung out on something last night, even as he was making the introduction.

What's happened to the work ethic in our society? All of this made me think back to when I was a kid. I remember my brothers all had paper routes and they mowed lawns in the summer, or raked leaves in the fall, shoveled snow in the winter, all over the neighborhood. My sisters and I babysat or went door-to-door selling colorful potholders we had created with little looms we bought in the dime store down on Main Street. In my family, we learned at an early age that the best way to have money to spend was to work for it. There was such a great feeling of satisfaction, knowing it was all ours, earned by work we had done -- and it wasn't any different with the friends I knew from school -- almost to a family, the "work ethic" was alive and well in my little hometown.

Sadly, it seems there's a growing number of young people who can't be bothered to follow the rules in a job, or they bend them, or don't work at all, relying instead on an allowance from mom and dad, or handouts from gram and grampa.

Is it laziness, or a Catch-22 -- a sad by-product of over-worked parents who haven't the time or energy to instill the very principles in their youngsters that the parents, who are doing it all for their children, are too busy and too tired to teach them? Like with so many other things, it's the children who lose out ...

Kisses, Hugs & Toddlers

Remember what it was like to be a child? It was something very different from who we are today. It was to believe in love and magic, to believe in fairies, to believe in belief, to be so little that the elves could reach to whisper in our ear; it was about turning pumpkins into coaches, and mice to horses, and nothing into everything, because every child has a fairy godmother in its soul ... and a grandmother for a best friend. ~CJ

Hello Everyone,

Just to give you a little heads up ... I'm going to be out of town for the next week, leaving today. I'll be in Connecticut babysitting two of my grandsons, both preschoolers, while a daughter and her husband go away for a much-needed R&R to rediscover that they are more than a mommy and daddy.

I'll be in Grammy Heaven; however, being a little out of practice with busy toddlers, I'm relatively sure any down time I have while they're napping will be spent doing laundry, cooking, picking up toys, or (I had to admit it), taking a power nap of my own to recoup. There probably won't be much time for the internet and its writing pleasures, including posting here.

Stay with me.  I promise I'll be back online when I return on the 23rd. In the meantime, please think of me knee-deep in much-missed grammy hugs, bedtime stories, night-night kisses, and playing cars and Legos on the floor with two little boys that I love so dearly.

Hugs,
CJ

P.S. I would LOVE to see my email box overflowing with your thoughts and stories when I get home ...

For Halloween

Have you ever been kidnapped by a poet?   I would like to kidnap YOU for a few minutes ... I'll scare the warm and fuzzies right out of you ...
~Hugs, CJ

Half Past Five

by CJ Heck

There’s a sewer drain
in town
on Peck's Corner,
and at half past five,
the street lamp
flickers on at dusk,
near where gentlemen
routinely take a leak
after leaving
the Raven's Wing Pub.
They’ve been doing it
for years, and
no one seems to notice,
except for the smell
of piss that assaults
the nostrils,
which in turn
informs the brain,
but only the vermin care
and there were
plenty of them
near the sewer drain
in town
on Peck's Corner.
I saw the body there
as I walked by
at half past five
on Monday.
The clock in the tower
told me it was so,
and when I called,
that’s what I told
the authorities.
His head
was in his lap,
the legs askew and bent
at impossible angles.
The arms hung down
with elbows facing out,
hands on top
of the head,
the head that was
in his lap
just above
the flaming red hair.
He was sitting
in a pool of
his own blood.
His mouth was frozen
in a scream that
no one will ever hear,
but the eyes,
the eyes,
I will never forget
the eyes.
The vermin had eaten
both eyes.
Will anyone ever know
the horror they saw,
on Peck's Corner
just before
half past five ...


A poem should not necessarily mean anything ... it should just simply, BE.

Flu Season: When Mommy's Sick

It's that time of year again. Robert and I went for our flu shots yesterday. Surprisingly, it only takes half a minute for the shot ... it takes a whole lot longer to fill out the paperwork that allows them to give you the shot.

Last year, I had a cold and had to pass on the flu shot -- bad, bad, bad. I eventually got the flu and was flat out and miserable for a good two weeks.  I didn't feel really well for another two.

It makes me remember years ago, when my children were young and I was sick ...

When Mommy's Sick ... no one's happy

When Mommy's Sick

by CJ Heck

Mommy's sick in bed today.

Doctor says she has the flu.

Sissy's got a stuffy nose

and she might get it, too.

When Mommy's sick it makes us sad

she doesn't feel so good.

She's having juice and medicine

like the doctor said she should.

It's not the same when Mommy's sick,

our hugs are all sick, too,

and kisses for our boo-boos

also have the flu.

Our sads are even sadder

so our happys aren't as glad

and when we're being naughty,

that even feels more bad.

Let's get her better, Sissy!

We'll get some more juice in her,

'cause I remembered something else,

ewwww, Daddy's cookin' dinner ...

[From the Book, "Barking Spiders 2", by CJ Heck]

Don't forget your flu shot. 

Hugs, CJ

"A writer soon learns that easy to read is hard to write." ~CJ Heck

Marylou McGinnis Crabtree

Friends are like Flowers

I've met a lot of wonderful friends through online communities over the years -- shoot, everyone has, but every so often, you meet someone you feel like you've known your whole life.  Your personalities and interests just seem to click.

I am proud to introduce a lady like that: Marylou McGinnis Crabtree. She's genuine, funny, caring, and she's real. She is also a witty, talented writer and she's my friend.

After reading yesterday's blog about my writer's block, she sent me the following message and, with her permission, I'm going to share it with you:

Thank you, CJ, 

Thank you for the article you wrote about your Writer's Block. I have had it for years. I really want to write a story about a touching experience I once had. I just cannot put my thoughts together and write it. 

There use to be a time that I could not go to bed without writing. I was driven to put my thoughts down on paper. Now, I can't seem to get my thoughts OUT of my head ... Sheesh! 

I didn't know you were having any writing 'issues' (I love that term). I thought maybe you were just having lunch with The Queen and giving her advice about jazzing up her purse collection. Or maybe you were being a covert government agent and planning your next secret mission. Or maybe you were just kicking back and enjoying this hotter than #&!@ summer ... 

Anyhow, after reading your article, I've decided I'm going to DO something different today -- sit outside in the woods and think. Or, I might go to the lake just to listen to the water lap on the tree roots (that's real noisy and very cool), or I might walk in the water with my Crocs on.

Sweet. I think I hear my blood pressure falling now. Thanks for letting me vent.
Many hugs,
~m~ 

Oops I forgot ...
Come to the fair We will all be there
Wearing our school colors
Don't be square
A huge smile ~m~

(Marylou McGinnis Crabtree)

Many thanks to Marylou for brightening up my day -- I hope I can talk her into writing something even longer for the blog next time ... Hugs, CJ


"A writer soon learns that easy to read is hard to write." ~CJ Heck

There are NO Calories in Life

As you've probably noticed, I've been beseiged by an attack of writer's block for the past couple of weeks.

 Inertia isn't something anyone welcomes, but when you're a writer who can't write, people do notice, and it's a real pain in the butt ...

Last week, in my frustration, I thought of an article I came across not long ago and saved -- I remembered that it made a real impression on me at the time. So I dug it out, re-read it, and waded out of my pity party long enough to try some of the suggestions.

 Grateful, I want to share the article with you. Take from it what you will.

"Too many people put off something that brings them joy because they didn't think about it, didn't have it on their calendar, didn't know it was coming, or are just too rigid to depart from their normal routine.

The other day, I thought about all those people on the fateful Titanic, some who might have passed on dessert at dinner in an effort to cut back on calories. It was mind-boggling. From that day on, I've tried to be a little more flexible in my own life.

How many women out there will eat at home tonight, because their partner didn't suggest going out to dinner until something had already been thawed out? Does the word refrigeration mean anything to you?

How often have your kids or grandchildren dropped in to visit and then sat in silence while you watched 'Jeopardy' on television?

I can't count the times I've called my sister and said, "How about going to lunch with me in a half hour?"

She would stammer, "I can't. I have clothes on the line; my hair is dirty; I wish you had told me yesterday; I had a late breakfast; it looks like rain."

She died a few years ago and we never did have that lunch together.

We Americans cram too much into our lives -- we even tend to schedule our headaches. We live on a sparse diet of promises we make to ourselves and others for when all the conditions are perfect. We'll go and visit grandparents when we get Stevie toilet-trained. We'll entertain when we replace the living-room carpet. We'll go on a second honeymoon when we get two more kids out of college.

Life has a way of accelerating as we get older. The days get shorter and the list of promises to ourselves gets longer. One morning, we wake up and all we have to show for our lives is a long list of "I'm going to's", "I plan on's", and "Someday, when things settle down a bit I'll" ...

Have you ever watched kids playing on a merry-go-round or listened to rain splatter on the ground? Did you ever follow a butterfly's erratic flight or gaze at the sun as it disappears into the ocean? When you ask, 'How are you?' Do you wait to hear the reply? Or, do you run through each day on the fly, trying to outdo what you got done yesterday? 

When the day is done, do you lie in your bed with the next hundred chores running through your head? Have you ever told your child, 'We'll do it tomorrow,' and in your haste, miss the sadness in his eyes? Have you ever lost touch with a friend and let a good friendship die? Call -- just say 'Hi'. 

I have a seize-the-moment friend. Whenever anyone calls her, she's ready for an adventure, and she's always available for spur-of-the-moment trips. She keeps an open mind for new ideas and her enthusiasm for life is contagious. You can talk with her for only five minutes, and you're ready to trade in your bad feet for a pair of rollerblades and skip taking the elevator for a dive on a bungee cord. I've decided. I want to be just like her. 

My lips hadn't touched ice cream in ten years -- I love ice cream! It's just that I might as well apply it directly to my butt and thighs with a spatula and eliminate the digestive process altogether. Well, the other day, I stopped the car and bought a triple-decker "Death by Chocolate" ice cream cone! If my car had hit an iceberg on the way home, I would've died a happy woman.

Now, go on, treat yourself to a nice day today. Do something you WANT to do -- not something on your 'to do' list. If you found out you were going to die today and you were only allowed one phone call, who would you call? What would you say? And why are you waiting?

When you worry and hurry through your day, it's like having an unopened gift that you've simply tossed away. Life isn't a race. Take it slower. Hear the music, before the song is over. Life might not be the party we had hoped for, but while we're here, we might as well dance." ~Author Unknown

Note: I'm still feeling some of the effects of writer's block, but I'm feeling a whole lot better about everything ... and that ice cream cone? Damn! It was worth EVERY SINGLE CALORIE ... hugs from me, CJ


"A writer Soon learns that easy to read is hard to write." ~CJ Heck