July 23, 2011

  • Are You Grampa's Sister?


    TALES FROM THE BRAT FARM

    Of all the things I could have been asked, when Chewlee asked me if I was Grampa's sister, that one was not expected.  She had just asked me if Grampa was my husband, and I told her *yes*.  That was the next one she asked.  I told her that I was Grampa's wife and she said, *OH!* like she had just made the connection.  But I know she hasn't.  At least, not yet.

    The Princess dropped her off complete with pajamas and clean clothes for the morning.  She was *too busy* for a bath tonight but I told her she could always take one tomorrow morning.  She shot me a look and said in that kind of snotty-pushed-into-agreeing-to-something-they-didn't-really-want voice that kids can get and said, *Fine!*.  This from a kid who actually loves to take a bath.  But I guess she's entitled to be *too busy* on occasion. 

    She was drawing with the markers and suddenly decided she was going to do something else, like talk to Grampa and went to rush out the door.  I yelled at her to come back and put the tops onthe markers and she (the little stinker) told me that *I* could do it.  I made her come back to do it and she said, *Okay, okay* and came back in to do that.  As she sat down on the floor and reached for the tops, I heard her say, under her breath, *Dammit!*.  When I said, *What was that you said?*, she looked up at me and said, *Sorry!*  Then she looked down while she struggled to make the tops *click* and said in a whisper, *Shit!*.  After a minute or so, when she had the tops back on the markers, she gave them to me to put up and said, *Are you mad, Grandma?  You sounded mad.  Are you mad at me?*  She stood there, looking me full in the face with the most intense, concerned look and waited for my answer.  I told her that I wasn't mad at her, just a little upset that she was using mommy and daddy words.  She knew what I meant when I said that because she has told me more than once that is what they are.  She put her head on my arm and her arm around my back and said, *I sorry, Grandma.  I won't do that again...I promise!*

    Unfortunately, her promises last about as long as her attention span.  But I will keep working on it wiher.  This IS the Bible Belt, after all, and their tolerance for such language from a little one is about this--> || long.  This isn't the big, sophisticated, tolerant city....LOL.

    Chewlee picked out our movie venue, as usual and one of her selections was *Rodan*.  However, after it was on for about 10 minutes or so, she got up from her Dora chair, went over and got Godzilla 2000 and said to me....*Grandma, I don't like that movie (pointing to the TV).  We need to watch the T-Rex movie like was watched the other day (T-Rex?).  It's better.  I don't like bird movies unless they are real birds.*  As she was saying all this, she ejected Rodan, found the case for it and put it in, then opened up the Godzilla one and put it in the dvd player.  She told me I could watch the *bird* one another time when she wasn't here.

    It was a battle of wills to get her into bed, of course, but the *ghose AND monster spray (I had forgotten about monsters because she isn't afraid of my monster-in-the-closet)* helped tremendously.  She kept telling me where to spray so that I would keep them out and she even made me spray around the doorway.  It was almost too funny.  Now it's Grandma time for a while and I just made myself the last of my mudslide.  I'm going to have to text the Princess in the morning and see if I can get her to pick me up some more and drop it off when she picks up Chewlee tomorrow night.  As this is the Bible belt, there is no liquor sales on Sundays...at least, not in this county although I understand from Johnnycakes that there are a couple counties that do have Sunday liquor sales.  I just don't know them.

    Love you all and I hope you have a fantastic weekend.  We are supposed to have one more day of this awful hot, hot weather and high humidity and then the temps should be dropping quite a bit.  In the meantime, I hate to keep beating the same drum but...drink lots of water, don't do any strenuous work outdoors during the hottest part of the days.  There's plenty of daylight so you can wait to work on that lawn or flower bed or garden until late afternoon if you can't get to it the first thing in the morning.  Heat and sun stroke are both killers, especially if you are older...ahem...and it's also hard on the young so keep an eye on your kids and don't let them stay out too long either.  In other words, use good, common sense and BE CAREFUL!