Saturday, August 20, 2011

Elizabeth is now 3!

Three years ago I was shocked to learn that I am a grandmother.

A grandma.

A granny.

Life is full of little surprises and we can’t be prepared for everything, although as adults we often pretend to be. When you and your ex-husband are seated at a sushi bar in Soho and your eldest son, who you’ve come to check on during his first year at NYU, orders a glass of water then reveals to you both that you are grandparents to a one-month-old granddaughter, reactions can be quite different. My reaction was an urgent primal yearning to get my arms around that fragile little angel and plant tender kisses all over her face, neck, arms and toes. My ex’s reaction was the subject for another story.

I earned a new nickname at the end of my first weekend visit from this beloved bundle of surprises. Not wanting to return my baby-powder scented cherub to her other grandparents, I proclaimed that I had crushed chocolate chip cookies and put the crumbs into her bottle of formula so that she would love me best. From then on, I became Grandma Cookie.

Visits from Elizabeth, now 3-years-old, are spent predominately in the kitchen where I serve her what to most children is the preferred choice of nutrition, 'mac ‘n cheese.' I make a killer four-cheese macaroni and cheese -- it’s the only thing that my sons agree on. ‘Izzi’ loves it too, as well as cookies, chocolate milk and sips of my iced tea. So much so that she has almost given up her desire to get down on all fours and eat and drink from the bowls of food set out for my pups Hamish and Kylie. She insisted the other day that she did indeed want to eat one of the dog biscuits...and not one of the whole wheat and bacon ones that I bake, but the milk bone variety. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from raising my sons, it’s that you can advise, admonish and plead that your loved one listens to you, but human beings are just going to do what they’re going to do, and some have to learn lessons the hard way. Each and every lesson.

I gave her a Milk Bone, and we regarded each other over the tray of her high chair. Me calling her bluff, and she with a determination to eat it, but a worry about what it might be like if she crunched down on that dry biscuit. She ultimately got herself out of that dilemma by piling granola onto it, nibbling it off and giving me a satisfied smirk that proclaimed ‘see? I ate it.’

What a little stinker, I can’t wait to see what she does next.

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not your usual Catalina Island shot

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fun with spelling

fun with spelling
downtown l.a.