TALES FROM THE BRAT FARM

Chewlee has been acting more and more grown up lately.  It's tough to pinpoint just when it happened but it's in her interaction with damn near everyone.  She just seems.....more mature than you expect.  When she plays *restaurant*, you can tell how observant she is   She comes over to you, paper and pen in hand and introduces herself, asks if you know what you want and will even give you choices like she is telling you about daily specials.  It's funny.

When she walks along with you, she engages in a conversation about things that are important to her or she tells you about one of her adventures.  The latest one involved her paternal grandfather and the pool at the motel he usually stays at.  After spending time with her in the pool, he promised her next time he will stay at a motel or hotel with a bigger pool.  She's slowly learning how to swim and will dive down to the bottom of a pool for fun.  He sees the difference since she was always afraid of getting into water over her head before our trip to Chicago and the tender ministrations of Kay and Ray.  I thank them for that.

I'm not sure if I am really happy about that.  Oh, everything makes it easier to have her around but I kind of miss that little girl who was just discovering EVERYTHING around her.  The Beast likes it but he has a *thing* about little kids.  He doesn't really want kids to just be kids, if you know what I mean.   But he sometimes does the right thing like buy her a Dora book that is geared to help her learn how to write her alphabet correctly.  It's made of some plastic covered heavy board and it comes with a wet wipe marker that has a broad tip.  It has a line for each letter and room for the kids to make the letters (upper and lower case) themselves, over and over.  She had to show me how easily she can clean off the page after writing on it.  She was so proud.  Then she started writing each of the letters and showing me them, too.  I'm the dutiful grandmother.  I made a big fuss over her attempts but I did tell her about writing the lines that are supposed to be straight, straight so that others could tell easily what letter she was writing.  She just said, *Oh!* like it was a new thought and redid the ones that had straight lines in them and showed me them proudly.

The Beast has been taking Chewlee with him to Bible study and she's been dying to answer a question so she can use the microphone.  Well, she finally knew the answer to one that was asked and she got the microphone.  She then proceeded to SCREAM her answer into it and nearly broke everyone's eardrums.    Everyone laughed, of course, but Chewlee thought you HAD to yell.  She didn't know the microphone made your voice loud so you could talk normally.  She knows now.   Once she had finished her answer and the Beast had told her she didn't NEED to yell to be heard, she looked at him seriously and said, *NOW can you take me to McDonald's so I can get something to eat after church?*    I guess he always asks her questions to find out if she's paid attention and her reward is a trip to McDonald's afterward.  Talk about bribery!

The Beast has been trying to tell the Princess to make sure Chewlee is dressed nicely on Sunday so that he could bring her to church if she wants to go.  Once I found out about the bribery, I knew exactly why Chewlee always wants to go with him.    But, if she learns something about God, it's not all bad, is it?

Love you all.  Gotta go.  I have a stack of clothes to fold.  Rain all week, **sigh**, and that doesn't make me happy at all.  It means Chewlee will be stuck inside and she will want to play one of the three different hidden object games that I have played on Pogo.  She knows about all of them.  And, unfortunately, it means she will want to be in my lap while we play them.  I'm going to have to make her take a break in-between episodes.

Be good.  Drive safely. 

TALES FROM THE BRAT FARM

...telling me she was under a severe thunderstorm watch until 8pm Eastern Time.  So I decided to check out and see what Weatherbug was showing as our forecast for the week.  How depressing.  Starting late tonight, it predicts RAIN...EVERY DAY ALL WEEK LONG!  it's all her fault!  I could have enjoyed the brief respites between showers since you know it won't rain non-stop.  Now I will know it's just a false face until the next wave of rain and thunder moves in.  Talk about a joy killer!

TALES FROM THE BRAT FARM

Today has to be all about the trio I mentioned in the title.  Chewlee has missed the Beast since he left.  She is so used to him being here that it upsets her whenever he is gone.  Baron, of course, becomes totally neurotic when his man is gone, even if it is just for a few hours.  He's a 110 lb. lapdog, as you can see from the photo.  That is the way I usually find them when the Beast is watching TV.

It wasn't until I went into the hospital for my two surgeries that Chewlee got attached to the Beast, although she always loved him as her *Papa*.  But now she found out that Papa does things Grandma doesn't (at least she hasn't seen me do some of them).  He took her for rides on the *Mooter scooter* as she calls it.  She also got to try driving the John Deere and help him mow the lawn.  Of course, if she was a teenager and HAD to mow the lawn, you know how she would feel, don't you? 

BUT....

She missed him.  So, when he walked into the house a little after 3, she heard the garage door open, went flying off my lap and out of the room towards the garage.  When she spotted him, I heard her yelling...*Grandma!  Grandma!  Papa's home!  He's home!*  She then ran back to my room, still yelling (in case I hadn't already heard her) but she turned around and ran back to him when she found me on my feet and heading out to the kitchen.

She wrapped herself around his leg, repeating *Papa, papa...we MISSED YOU!*  She had this shit-eating grin on her face and then I heard.....*Did you bring me something?*  That made the Beast laugh as he was trying to fend off Baron who was jumping around and leaping in the air in sheer joy that his man was finally home.

The Beast was whipped from driving back from North Carolina.  He only stopped once for some lunch, coffee and a short walkabout to stretch his legs.  He had filled up the car with gas yesterday after playing cards with his aunt at the rehab hospital.  He stopped back there this morning to say goodbye to her and then got on the road for home.  He hit some rain inbetween here and there and that slowed him down a bit. 

When he got home, all he really wanted to do was lean back in his recliner, stretch his legs out and maybe even catch a short nap.  He forgot that Chewlee would be here.  He didn't expect HER to be so excited.  He DID expect it of Baron.  The two of them were almost more than he could take.

After he was home for about two hours, he got on his scooter and took Baron for a run.  In the meantime, Chewlee went looking for him to ask him something and discovered the *mooter scooter* was gone.  She came into my room, crying.  *Papa went on the mooter scooter without me*, she kept saying.  Her little heart was broken.  I asked her if she was sure and she told me that it wasn't in the garage.  I heard the Beast driving up the driveway and I said, *Why don't you check again?  I think he moved it and you can't see it unless you go out IN the garage now.*  She went to recheck and I heard the scooter start up.  She must have chewed him out for not taking her so he took her for a ride around the circle with Baron trotting and running alongside them.  It was a second run for him but he needed the exercise.

When they got back, the two of them went out on the deck and gave Baron a bath.  He needed it and he enjoyed the cool water, too.  He doesn't even have to be tied up any more.  The only thing that upsets him is that the Beast takes off his collar.  For whatever reason, he doesn't like his collar being off him.  Weird dog.  But then, his *man* is weird too so what am I thinking????  ROFLMAO!

Chewlee wants Papa to take new pictures of her for over the fireplace.  She said to me, *I have to have my hair down though.*  I told her that I liked her with her hair up or in braids, too, but she said, *No.  You will laugh at me.*  When I said to her, *Why would I laugh?*  She told me that it made her look silly and when her hair was down, it looked beautiful.  At least she said nothing about her ears.  I am going to ask her tomorrow just WHO it was that told her she had monkey ears.  I really want to know.

The Princess got off work about an hour early (the restaurant was kind of dead) so she volunteered to take off.  She said she was tired but she sat and schmoozed with the Beast for a half hour.  Chewlee had something she wanted to talk to her mother about but she kept being told to wait.  The poor kid couldn't get a word in edgewise and her mother didn't take a break to listen to her.  She finally came in my room, disgusted and told me that her mother was talking to Papa so she could come in and watch cartoons.  She stood next to me for a minute and then said to me, *Grandma, what was it I wanted to talk to my mommy about?*  Since I've had those kind of moments myself, I didn't laugh.  I thought about it for a minute then realized she was holding a drawing she had done earlier and said, *Maybe it was about your drawing?*  Her face lit up and she said, *YES!  That's it!  Thank you, Grandma.  I was waiting so long, I forgot.*

You have to understand that Chewlee gets diarrhea of the mouth A LOT!  She can talk, talk, talk and drive you nuts at times.  She is still learning that you can't just interrupt people all the time because it's rude.  She's still not sure  what *rude* means and there just aren't any simple words you can use to teach her.  You have to give examples she can relate to and that's tough at times.

Time to wrap this up.  Love you all.  Be good, stay cool.  Don't overdue if you have to be outside for any reason.  Keep your tasks for late afternoon or early evening.  It stays light much longer now so you should be able to set aside outside tasks until the heat is starting to dissipate.  Drive carefully and be considerate.  The heat gets on people's nerves so you don't want any of that driver's rage aimed at YOU! 

TALES FROM THE BRAT FARM

Chewlee loves to picnic.  In my computer room.  On the floor with one of her special blankets as our picnic blanket.  We must make a menu for our picnics.  They vary from day to day.  We must have at least four items, not including our drinks.  She invites her pets...Katie the kangaroo and Katie Kitty are the usual suspects.  Sometimes there's Katie the baby doll.  She seems to like the name Katie.  What do you think? 

One day I had to make her a salami sandwich (I had bologna).  I had to put them on small plates and she put them at our places on the blanket.  She grabbed two tangarines (one for each of us), the tortilla chips and some Pecan Sandies cookies for dessert.  She drank chocolate milk, I had some regular milk and then my coffee.

Chewlee took the lead and got upset when I grabbed a section of orange.  SHE hadn't said it was time to eat our oranges.  I couldn't believe how upset she got over that so I told her *Sorry...I didn't know I had to wait.*  Then she told me, *First we eat our sandwiches and we can have a couple chips after we eat HALF.  When that's all gone, THEN you eat your orange and you can have TWO cookies!*  I told her she had to tell me the rules for the picnic or I would make a mistake.  She settled down then and moved Katie Kangaroo next to me and said Katie liked me. 

We sat and watched TV and talked.  She talked mostly about going to big kids school (as she calls it) and her worries about taking a bus because she doesn't have a map to give the driver (I assured her that the driver knew where to pick her up and take her after school).  She worries about things she shouldn't at times and she's sincere in her worries.  At times it's hard to allay those fears no matter what you say.

After we finally finished eating everything, I was allowed back at my computer.  Then she climbed in my lap and we had to play *MY* favorite game, Clue.  It's actually HER latest delight.   It's a hidden object game on Pogo and there are always six parts to it.  Five scenarios with a dozen items to find and then a split screen one where you have to find 15 differences between them.  The whole game is timed (60 minutes in total).  Chewlee is very good at finding many of the items that are hidden.  But she surprised me at how good she is at finding the differences on the last scenario.  I mean it!  She's incredible at that one.  In some of the other scenarios, the items you have to find are ones she isn't familiar with so I always take the time to show her so she will know for the next time.  Today it was an artichoke that comes to mind.  She also didn't know what a bust of Napolean was but she does now.  Also the Eiffel Tower.

I told her that she was really good at finding the differences and she just glowed in pride over that.  She told me she would get better at finding things...just watch and see!  I love to watch her thinking and concentrating.  Her mind is a little sponge.  She told me today that she didn't like when her mommy gets mad at her but sometimes she does bad things.  I didn't ask her what bad things.  I figured she will tell me when she's ready.

I found out why she's become so strange about having her hair back in braids or a pony tail.  She told her mother that *I* told her she had monkey ears.  I was shocked because I have NEVER told her that.  I have told others not to make fun of her ears sticking out because it will make her oversensitive and hurt her feelings.  She may have heard me being upset over someone telling her she had *monkey ears* and thought I was saying that about her.  Now I have to find a way to get that out of her head so she can wear her long hair in braids or a pony tail and not be self-conscious about her ears.  **Sigh**

Sheepie called me today wondering if the aunt that the Beast was visiting was a patient at the rehab center where she works.  It seems she has a woman there with the same name as the aunt.  When I told her HIS aunt lived in North Carolina, she was relieved.  She said she just was a bit worried that she had a relative there at HER nursing home that she didn't know about.  LOL!

I called the Beast who, it turned out, was at the nursing home playing cards with his aunt.  It relieved me to find out that she hasn't been moved home....at least not yet.  I hope the Beast DID discuss some of the alternatives with his cousin and that she looks into it.  Of course, what bothers me is, if it might take money out of their pockets, she won't do it.  She's really money hungry and hangs onto her money.  She will spend AM's but this close to her mother possibly dying, she's not going to want to give any more of it away than she has to.

Love you all.  Be smart and kind to yourself and others in all this heat. 

TALES FROM THE BRAT FARM

The Beast spent the day at the rehab hospital with AM.  He said after watching her, talking to the PT people and to her, too, he doesn't think she will ever walk again.  Between the seriousness of the broken bones, her weight (she has the biggest ass and thighs I have ever seen on someone as active as she was) and her Parkinson's, no one seems to feel she is physically capable of healing to the point she will be able to take care of herself.  She's 93 and the Beast said she looks every bit of that and more now.  She has just aged tremendously in a short period of time since he last went to visit her.

She wants to come home and he says he doesn't blame her but it took a special electric swing machine to get her in and out of bed.  His cousin will not be able to handle her.  She's not that strong.  I suggested that his cousin should explore the options open to her...a couple of aides, purchasing the swing thing or something similar.  She wants to buy a new car that's easier for her to take her mother to the doctors but she might actually need a special van for wheelchair patients.  Or a van with a ramp and then something to clamp the wheelchair in place.  He said he would talk to her about it tonight (Wednesday night) when she got home from HER stint at the rehab center.  It's not going to be an easy road.  He seriously believes that she won't last six more months.  She wants to be at home when she dies.  He thinks she's really tired of being in pain all the time and doesn't want to live like she has to now.  She has always been an active woman.  This is a monstrous setback for her.  We shall just have to wait and see what happens now.

Today is my 48th anniversary.  Ha! Ha! Ha!  If not for the fact that I am a true believer that marriage is (supposed to be) forever, I probably wouldn't be married to the Beast now.  He has not been a good husband most of the time.  I was totally surprised at how good he has been since I started having all this surgery.  He took over the house cleaning, the cooking and the washing.  I was able, regardless of where I was in the healing process, to fold clothes at least and help out that way.  It would have been a much better marriage if he had ever pitched in while our kids were young but he expected me to work a full-time job AND take care of everything else.  For many years, we even paid people to take care of the lawn, bushes, trees, etc. so he didn't even do that much.  All he did was work and drink and beat me up whenever something had him frustrated.  The kids would run out of the house and disappear when he came home because, otherwise, they would be a target too. 

I even threw him in jail several times.  Hell, he broke multiple ribs, cracked facial bones and even broke my nose once.  I have to tell you that I was mad at God A LOT!  Marriage forever?  That was not reasonable once we were living longer lives. 

He is no longer physically abusive but there are still ways he's not very Christian.  He is selfish and self-centered.  He begrudges me almost everything.  I brace for an argument when I even buy myself some new clothes.  BUT...I shop for bargains.  He buys top quality.  I kid you not.  He has a sport jacket he ONLY paid $160. for and IT WAS MARKED DOWN!  I was supposed to cheer over how great that was.  Shit!  I owned only one item in my whole life that cost close to that amount.  It was gorgeous and the Beast actually loved my owning it but he was in a *make up* mode at the time after a serious injury to me.  He was afraid I would testify against him when the state's attorney wanted to prosecute him for it.  He still had to serve a six month probation and go to anger management classes.  Not that he learned a damn thing.  Useless waste of time and money.

Like most marriages, even bad ones, there have been good times scattered in there, too.  I've owned some beautiful homes and enjoyed them immensely.  We had some good friends (and still do) and good times with them.  We enjoyed some great vacations and had fun.  We owned boats and traveled to Bimini in them.  We now own a pontoon boat because, since the Beast had his two strokes, our ocean going days are over.   So are the days when he thought *I* couldn't take him.   

But he called me from his aunt's today to wish me a Happy Anniversary and give me a promise to take me out for a drink or two on Friday when he comes home.  He doesn't know it yet but he's not going to get away that cheap.  He's going to take me out for a lobster dinner even if it can't be on Friday (I'll have Chewlee here).  I've wanted lobster for a while and haven't had any in a few years. 

I still am in shock that it's been that long.  Time flies.  Sad but true.  But it is only because I believed (old school) that marriage was supposed to be forever.  Plus I kept thinking....he can change.  He WILL change.  All I have to do is......  More fool me.  I tell all young girls *Don't think you can change him.  If you see things you don't like before you get married, get away from him.  He will NOT change.  Trust me on that.  Been there, thought that.*

Time to get to bed and get some decent sleep.  Love you all.