mattress mayhem

Many moons ago, when we lived in our little one-bedroom apartment in Georgia, my family came to visit over Easter weekend, and brought an air mattress with them. My sister slept on the couch and we inflated - manually - the balloon-bed on which Mom and Dad would sleep. And when I say "manually" I mean "orally". Yep. No vacuum inflaters back then. Not even a measly little foot pump. We huffed. And we puffed. And we huffed. And we puffed. And we blew that giant overpriced pool float right up. . . over the course of, say, two or three hours.

Later, while we were all sleeping peacefully in our respective beds, the apartment complex came under attack. In the wee hours of the morning we were startled awake by an explosion akin to a sonic boom or an 8.2 earthquake:

BOOM!!!!

It hit us so hard we literally screamed ourselves awake. "WHAT WAS THAT?! ARE YOU OKAY? ARE WE UNDER ATTACK? IS EVERYBODY ALIVE?" I ran the 5 steps from my bed to the living room to witness the following: the air mattress had exploded, Dad was lying FLAT on the floor, Mom was draped over him like the wreath on a winning racehorse, and the remaining air (and saliva) in the mattress was poofing out past their toes. Recalling this story still makes me laugh out loud.

I'd give anything to have an actual photograph of "Ground Zero" following this mattress-mayhem, but then again, the mental picture in my head is so worth these thousand words.

it's tough to be a SAHM... or how I survived four days without folding laundry

That's SAHM - Stay At Hyatt M.E., just to clarify.

Four days in the Hyatt place with my Mayah.  (When I say "my Mayah", I fully understand that I share her with three other grandparents, five great-grandparents, one aunt, two uncles, two cousins, an entire youth group, a daddy, a mommy and a partridge in a pear tree.  But indulge me...)

I was a Stay-at-Home-Mom for a good chunk of my parenting years and - some of you will hate me for this, but I gotta be honest - it was pretty doggone easy.  I never thought of it as hard or stressful or claustrophobic.  Sure, we were always broke.  Sure, I was always picking up 'odd jobs' to make ends meet.  Sure, our entertainment came in the form of board games and park days and movie nights with videos checked out from the library.  Sure, we took advantage of mooching off my parents as much as possible, but I'm telling you, I wouldn't trade my gig as a SAHM for all the blog readers in the country.

A few years ago I moved from SAHM to "Take Him to Work with Me Mom", and this year officially graduated to "Empty Nester", and I gotta tell ya, I'm growing accustomed to having things my way.   I fix what I want for dinner, take long baths with no interruptions, read books besides "Little House on the Prairie", and I never have to feel guilty for staying up too late playing Scrabble on Facebook.

So, my four days with my 19-month-old granddaughter in this upscale suburban hotel didn't come without its challenges. 

First, there was the unrealistic expectation by the hotel housekeeping staff that we would actually get out of bed sometime before noon so they could come in and make the beds and vacuum and take out the trash and bring clean laundry.  Oh, the inconvenience.

Second, since Mayah and I were without a car, we had to actually WALK a half mile or more in balmy 70-degree weather to places that fix your food and let you hang out and drink coffee...and then clean up after you.  Again, such hardship. 

Third, I was forced to lie, thus ALMOST making me feel guilty.  See, several people every day told me how adorable/sweet/smart my little girl was.  And I TRIED to be honest.  Well, honestISH.  One woman said, "Oh my, your daughter is BEAUTIFUL!" to which I responded, "Thank you!" (My daughter IS beautiful, she just happened to be 20 miles away at the time.)  Another woman smiled and asked, "Is she your first?" and I answered truthfully, "YES she IS!"  She didn't say first WHAT, so it wasn't REALLY a lie...right? 

Fourth,  Mayah had moments of missing her parents.  "MamaDada?" she queried, as she pointed to the door.  I would assure her they were coming back, but for today she was just getting to play with M.E.  But occasionally, she missed more than 'MamaDada'... she missed her nursing time with mommy.  And she let me know in a myriad of ways that she was CERTAIN I could serve the same useful purpose for her if I would only let her try.  She would poke me, roll her wrists (her sign for 'milk'), climb into my lap, try to pull my shirt up, and look at me as if to say, "WOMAN, you're holding out on me!  Don't try to tell me THOSE puppies are not loaded with boobie juice!"   Sorry kid, been there, done that, and happy to no longer have my body used as a vending machine, thank you very much.  So she would just curl up in my lap and let me sing to her as she drifted off to sleep in my arms.

I told you...it was a tough week.

someday

I spent last week with one of the loves of my life.  We held hands, took long walks, and kissed - a lot.  We stayed up late in our hotel room, talking and reading and snuggling, and cuddled in bed until late in the mornings.  We watched birds and picked honeysuckle.  We laughed.  We even fed each other grapes.  No stress, no worries, no expectations, just 96 hours of falling more in love.

I guess, at this point, you should know that this particular "love of my life" is my 19-month-old granddaughter, Mayah.

I was blessed to tag along with my daughter and son-in-law, to Atlanta, where they attended a conference, and Mayah and I got to be together - just the two of us.  Living 5 hours away in Indianapolis has made our limited time together very precious - especially now that she's old enough to like me.  :)    

There's more to come on this blog about the difficulties of living out of a hotel room with a toddler, but for today, I just want Mayah to know I had the BEST week.  I love you, little girl.  Someday I hope you fully understand how much.