Zoom, zoom, zoom

My niece was telling me about having to cut fruit snacks out of her 2 year old's hair and it reminded me that there were fruit snacks in the rear of my car that I needed to get out before the weather gets warm and they melt all over the seats. So, I bundled up and went out to the cold garage, on a mission to get dirty sticky Dinos and Fred Flinstones off the back seat of my car.


When I opened the back car door, and saw the disaster in there, I almost fell over! What happened in the back seat of my car? This could not be my car! But it was. I looked at the grubby booster seat that my state mandates for children too big for car seats, yet too little for car seat belts, and I realized that another change had snuck up on me since I became a Grandmother.


Change Number 3 - Bad


My car is no longer cared for. Now, I am not talking footprints, or a little kid traffic mess. It was full blown neglected and I could literally calculate my resale value as it spiraled downward. Even worse, the car is only 6 months old.


I think I stopped taking care of it when the booster seats went in. I didn't even stretch out a beach towel on the upholstery before I toggled the child seats. I was in Grandmother mode, so all I cared about was that I was going to pick up my grands, not caring a lick about the new car. This is a bad change, and I had to nip it in the bud. 


First, I scraped out the fruit snacks, fished out the french fries, and gathered up the candy, ice cream, and Happy Toy wrappers, and tossed it all into the trash.The empty, smashed up juice boxes went into the recycle bin with the little chocolate milk jugs and soda cups with straws. Then, I collected the Happy Toys, Legos, and Junior Spy paraphernalia, and tossed them into a sink of hot water and antibacterial soap. I swear there was chewed up chicken nugget crammed into the back of some of the Legos. This find actually made me gag a little.


Then, I tenderly washed down the surfaces full of sticky prints and germs, polished the window glass, scrubbed the seats, and vacuumed the floor, all while apologizing profusely to my car for neglecting her.


You laugh, but I am from Michigan. Our cars are like members of our family. We love them and care for them for fear they will conk out on us the day we are running late for the dentist in a blizzard. We protect them from abuse, like we protect our children, and I had failed my four wheeled girl. Before grandchildren, this would never have happened. So, I made amends and set things straight between me and my dependable SUV. Zoom, zoom, zoom.


My car is clean again. I have an old beach towel under the booster seats, a bag for litter, and a new rule: No More Eating In Gran's Car. No more fruit snacks, juice boxes, or chicken nuggets. Any toys left in the car will be added to the basket filled with Gran and Papa's toys. No one dares take a toy out of that basket home with them! Well, actually one of them does try, but that is another story, for another day.

Day Two: Footprints

As I made my way to the kitchen this morning the sun was shining in and I noticed footprints, boot prints, and sneaker prints on the dark walnut floor in the foyer. Most of them were pretty little. No little feet have been in my foyer since last week. That means that those footprints have been there on my wood floor for three days. Three days?


That can't be. I am the woman who yells at her family when they track up the floor. I am the woman who cleans her floors and vacuums her carpet every day. I am the woman whose friends tease her because someone could eat off her floors. Then the light went on.


Change Number Two: Good


Surprise, surprise! I stopped putting the cleanliness of my floors above the happiness as my family. Those little Grands are responsible for an amazingly good change in me by unknowingly making me adjust my priorities.


Truth is, I love it when they come to my house. Obvious by the dirty foyer, I love it so much, I don't even notice the mess they make. Now that I think about it, on some level I must actually like the mess. It means they were here and it means that I didn't holler and yell at anyone to keep things pristine. Pristine is not who I am now, and I am happy to accept and embrace this change. Not yelling and nagging about things that can so easily be remedied makes me more fun to be around, more fun to visit and probably more likely to get visited.


Don't get me wrong, I still like a clean house and the foyer is already gleaming and footprint free, but I am not. There are now footprints on my heart -- proof that I am a Grandmother. A Grandmother who has changed for the better, thanks to her Grands.

Day One: Eyes Wide Open

Today is Day One for The New Grandmother. That's me and it doesn't mean I just became a Grandmother. It means that I'm going to become a New Me.


Actually, my first grandchild was born 13 years ago. Since then, there have been changes in my life that I have allowed to take place with abandon. Some good, some bad. Either way, I'm now going to make these changes mine. I am going to own each and every one, and once I own these reckless changes, I control them. That means the good will be recognized and embraced and the bad, well...they will be obliterated or accepted with awareness and grace.


I'm not sure how many there will be, but as I am looking closer at what's changed in my life since I entered grand-parenthood, feel free to comment on changes that you've noticed in yourself, your parents, or the Grandparents you know and love.


Change Number One - Bad


Here goes...I stopped looking at my body. And, because I stopped looking, I stopped thinking of it as a sexual or desirable being. The fact is, when I graduated into Grand-motherhood, I stopped looking at it all together. I just made sure it was there and available when, or if, a grandchild needed it.


Today, I looked. It wasn't great. Maybe it will never be great again, but from now on, I OWN this change and it has been obliterated. I will now look at my body (Lord, help me!) as often as I did when I first became a mother and was so concerned with what pregnancy did to my figure. I worked out and exercised and I looked in the mirror almost every day so I could see my pre-pregnancy shape return.


Now that I own this change, I will once again look at my body almost every day. Just so you know, I had a grab bar installed in the shower so that instead of looking down and closely watching the floor and preparing myself to eat shiny white tile and fluffy bath rug for breakfast, I can hold on and look straight ahead into the huge mirror directly in front of me. And look. Eyes wide open.


By the way, looking today convinced me to go to a gentle yoga class at my local rec center. I know...gentle yoga is for sissies, but I have to start somewhere and I have to start easy. Remember, I have not really looked at this blob for 13 years! There is work to be done and blowing out a knee or a lower back would not be sexy. So, gentle yoga it will be until I can safely move up to more strenuous classes. I am sure that by obliterating this change and looking at my body every day, I will soon begin to see my pre-Grandmother shape return. For the record, it was pretty darn sexy!