Subtitled: A Circular Path to a Certain Insanity
If you send a card to Grandma, you will need to have your children sign it. You’ve purchased a fairly expensive card, because you care enough to send the very best and it is, after all, your grandma. (Your husband’s grandma, actually. Even more important.) You will need to bite your tongue when your daughter hands the card back to you with a flourish, and you see that she has scribbled out her name three times before she finally got it right.
If you send a card to Grandma, you will need to include original artwork. You will need to clear off the kitchen table to have a workspace, and you will try not to yell about all the half eaten bowls of cereal that you find there. You will fail in your attempt to not yell.
If you send a card to Grandma, you will have to find markers that actually work. This is a challenge, because only rarely do the markers get replaced in their bin with their caps intact. You will wonder: have the people from Foohy, Crayola and RoseArt cut a private deal with my children? Do these companies even make the caps in the first place?
If you send a card to Grandma, you will need to sit next to your first grader because she will want to handwrite a little note to include with all the artwork. She will need to know how to spell Grandma. And then she will need to know how to spell happy. And birthday. And wish. And could. And visit. You will want to pour yourself another cup of coffee at this point.
If you send a card to Grandma, you will have to sweep the floor and vacuum the carpet because one of the kids needed a sharpened pencil. He then proudly emptied the pencil sharpener, leaving behind a large pile of shavings on the dining room floor; a trail of brown dust leading down the hallway; and one last little pile of smudgy leaden bits (for good measure) on the kitchen floor beside the garbage can.
If you send a card to Grandma, you will try to entertain the little ones while the big kids do their drawings. You will pull the Animal Encyclopedia off the shelf to play A-B-C animal. The rules are easy. Someone picks a letter. Another person begins describing an animal that begins with that letter and everyone tries to guess it. You will soon cancel this activity when the toddler, who is sitting in your lap, interrupts the game repeatedly by pointing at the illustrations and insisting in high decibel tones, “Look at the bunny. Look at the bunny! Look at the bunny!!!” At this point you will find that the coffee’s no longer helping.
If you send a card to Grandma, you may miss the day of her actual birthday.
But if you send a Grandma—and by this I mean actually send it—you will be happy.
Exhausted, yes.
Exasperated, certainly.
Insane? A wee bit, maybe.
But also you’ll be very proud. And do you know what? You will have earned it.
We had the “grandpa” version over here just a few weeks ago…
insane, exasperated, exhausted…yes indeed.
But it was worth it.
🙂
LOL! I love reading your posts. Makes me realize I’m not alone. And, I am very proud of you for getting the card out. I, myself, have yet to get to that point yet.
Speaking from experience…let me tell you that once grandma gets the card she is very, very happy and (again from experience) knows how much work and love went into the making of her precious and much appreciated card! Keep up the good work, MOM, and know that it’s teaching your little ones more than you know!
Blessings!
Hilarious, Margaret!
Love, Alice Gunther
Margaret, are you writing about me and my children several years ago??? 🙂 Oh, it all sounds so painfully, wonderfully familiar. 🙂
Are you sure you’re not talking about MY children? LOL!! This is so funny.
This is exactly what happens at my home!!!! Exactly! And the same reason my cards always go out on their birthday, with full intentions of it going out before! Great story! You should turn this one into a childrens book! I know it would sell! I would have to add the 2 year old coloring with her markers on herself and everything but the paper!
Now I know what I have to look forward to in a few years… 😉
So funny. So true. We sent our gramma a letter on Monday. Whew! Does it have to be so hard? And then why do the stamps vaporize and the walk to the mailbox seem so long. Luckily grammas were mommies first and appreciate correspondance, scribbles, and spots.
Very funny! And all too familiar!LOL!
Whats the problem? Just call it school for the day. Writing, spelling, reading, research… I’m sure we can come up with some math in there somewhere.
Very cute story.
lol
Oh — I needed a good laugh after fighting the entertain the toddler vs. teach the older kids war! And I’m with Bridget, that’s all we would have done for school… and counted matching the proper tops to the proper marker a geometry lesson of sorts (there’s gotta be shapes involved in that process somehow.)
Maryan
Just wanted to let you know how I loved this post. It is so well written and so true! I got such a kick out of it. LOL
I laughed so hard at this that Boo came over and demanded to know what was so funny. He’s read the other books (mooses and muffins, et al) and was so amused that he spent a long time enjoying the entire blog. Time and distance are such hard masters!
I’m sure Grandma loved it and appreciated all the effort! And, yes, it is very much the same here…sigh…smile!
Please, please, let me be the grandma. I only have “grand-dogs” and I don’t want anymore bones.