A World Turned Upside Down: A Thrill of Hope

O Holy Night has never been my favorite Christmas song. 

Oh, it's beautiful if it's done absolutely perfectly. The hushed opening crescendo-ing up and up until it bursts into splendor--magnificent! But the chances it will be done perfectly are slim. Most singers can reach the opening notes, a few good sopranos can reach the mid-part of the song when we FALL on our KNEES to HEAR the angel VOICES. Rare, though, is the belter who can confidently reach the E-natural of the NIIIIIIGHT, and even fewer can reach the G-natural of the NIIIIIIIIIIIIGT DIVINE, before shushing back down to the night when He was born. 

I've accompanied this song maybe a thousand times in my life, and every single time I've sympathetically dreaded that G natural. 

This year, though, I have this song on mental repeat. I sing it to myself on my morning walk, delusionally confident no one is seeing me in my ratty work-out clothes. I hum it as I wash the pans in which I've baked peppernuts and combined cereals for party mix. I mouth the words in the shower, and as I wrap presents. 

They are my end-of-year anthem for 2020, because dear ones, we are going to make it. Even as the noose of numbers tighten around us, and friends and loved ones test positive, I feel it: 

A thrill of hope. 

Did you sob as you saw the first health worker being vaccinated? I did. And I sobbed again when my Lovely Girl #2, a frontline doctor with high-risk health issues, posted the picture of her own arm being jabbed. Every vaccination picture of those health workers, who must be so tired and so sad, made me cry.

A thrill of hope.

When the first of my immediate family let us know he had tested positive in spite of scrupulous precautions, but then emerged with only manageable symptoms, I began to unclench my jaw 

A thrill of hope.

When the political signs all but disappeared in Small Town and I began to think we may survive with our democracy threatened but not destroyed. 

A thrill of hope. 

It doesn't mean we are somehow back to the Before, of course. We have so very much work still to do, to keep ourselves and others safe and to move forward to a more communicative, more-inclusive us on the heels of so much division. 

We will never forget the ones who did not make it through the pandemic, and the scars on our businesses, our schools, our psyches, and our confidence will never disappear although they will inevitably fade. 

But it's there, that thrill of hope, and we can hit the high G with confidence.

A weary world rejoices.

We Gather Together, Apart

 

One Thanksgiving pie

In any other year, the very thought that I would sit down at 9 o'clock on Thanksgiving morning to write a blog post would send me into peals of hysteria-edged laughter. 

Thanksgiving is my favorite day of the year, as I've noted in this space every single year. I love the season, I love the food, I love the lack of commercialization as vendors leap over this holiday to get to Christmas. And most of all, I love that for as long as I can remember, my extended family has gathered to celebrate the day. 

For the better part of three decades that gathering took place at the House on the Corner as my parents, all my siblings and their families, and any other un-familied friends I could gather in would pack the house for hugs and laughs and turkey and all the pie we could eat. When the expanding family outgrew the house we moved the celebration to a college meeting room, then to a church fellowship hall. We began alternating hosting duties with Much Older Sister in a different part of the state, and last year there were dozens and dozens of best-beloveds hugging and squealing and passing around new babies.

The event was not without its glitches--one year my mixer gave up the ghost before the potatoes were mashed, and another year the turkeys weren't cooked through at the appointed eating time--but it didn't ruin the day for even a second. 

We were together, and that's all that mattered. 

This year is, well, this year. 

Husband and I will sit down to turkey in our dining room table with only two Boys, both of whom quarantined and tested before they started home. The other two Boys are with their own nuclear families in their own homes. My siblings are likewise siloed with their immediate family members, and my youngest brother is cooking a full dinner for Dad and his wife. 

There is one turkey, not six. One pie rather than 13. Quantities scaled down from 60 servings to four, plus leftovers.

It could not be more different from the Thanksgiving I hold in my heart. I should have been up at 5:30 to sauté the onions and celery for the dressing, mentally checking off when the sweet potatoes needed to come out of the oven and when the green bean casserole needed to go in.

I'm sad, of course, that I won't see my Dad, or be with Baby Wonderful for his first major holiday. I'll miss the almost tactile swell of love that gusts in with the arrival of each family.

But, oh, you cannot imagine the gratitude with which I am counting my blessings. Maybe it takes a year like this, when we're all so close to the precipice, to be able to articulate the causes of our joy.

The family, today all safely tucked in their own homes. We cannot take tomorrow for granted, but today...

The friends from every age of my life, who this year have been so precious in the reconnections and checking-ins. 

The technology, without which we would not have seen or heard our dear ones. 

The new tone of hope in our national discussions, a time in which our elected leaders are urging us to be kind and think of each other. 

The selfless, beyond-exhausted service of our health workers, our teachers, and especially our minimum-wage store clerks and farm workers. 

Every single person I see wearing a mask and acknowledging wordlessly that we are in this struggle together. 

I could fill the internet with the my list of blessings, even in 2020. All of those who last year I assumed I would see today are counting their own blessings around their own small tables. 

And next year, God willing, rather than gathering apart we will once again gather together. 

World Turned Upside Down: That Was Unexpected

 

Well, no one can say the current epoch has been without surprises. 

I mean, there are some bombshells that are less surprising to many of us than they have been to others. Your county has been systematically ignoring the mask mandate and you've been posting pictures of your birthday parties and family reunions on Facebook, and now you are shocked (SHOCKED, I tell you!) that schools are going from in-person to remote as far as the eye can see? Huh. You believe your cousin's chiropractor's dog-walker's claim that this is no worse than a cold, then are flabbergasted that your knee replacement is going to have to wait because there are no hospital beds even for heart attack and stroke victims? Science is shaking its head at your amazement.

But once in a while there is a moment of true surprise during this pandemic. 

Last Saturday, for example, was grocery pick-up day. That was not a surprise. I've been picking up groceries since the second wave began (or rather, the latest punch of the first wave) and folks, if there's one wonderful thing that has come out of this malarkey it is grocery pick-up. 

I loooooove it. 

No masking up and holding my breath as I try to reach around the unmasked guy who is not only breathing on all the Honeycrisps but is also touching each one before putting it in his cart. No seeing how many people are spewing death out of their faceholes because they do not know how to properly cover their noses. 

No, curbside pick-up means I place my order online, avoiding the kind of impulse purchases that have led to a bottle of clam juice languishing in my pantry for three years. (Why even?) Then I drive to the store during my pre-appointed pick-up time and someone brings the bags right out to my already-opened trunk. 

It's like having magic elves a computer click away. 

Sadly, Small Town does not have curbside pick-up, so the magic elves live a 35 minute drive away, but that hasn't been a problem because even the round-trip is faster the amount of time I would normally spend doing my grocery shopping, and the lack of clam-juice purchases more than compensates for the gas expense. 

Saturday's shopping trip was not the well-oiled experience I've previously had, though. Husband and I pulled into the pick-up zone well into our scheduled one-hour slot only to get a phone call from the store. "We're running really late, and it's going to be at least an hour before your groceries are ready. Could you go run your other errands or something?"

Husband will tell you that I did not react well to this. In my defense, I had not had my morning coffee yet, but I also will point out that killing time in someone else's town is no longer the grand adventure it was seven months ago. Yes, there's a yarn shop next door but am I going in? Not likely. 

So we drove around for 10 minutes while I fumed and pouted, then we parked back in our spot and I fumed and pouted for another 55 minutes while pointing out that there were only three spots occupied in the 10-car delivery area, and that I could have done the dadgummed shopping myself in less time, and what's the point of life anyway? 

I was a glorious, sunshine-filled companion for a full hour. Then the attendant brought out the bags of groceries, handed me my receipt and hot-footed it back into the store before I could look at the receipt and realize that a full third of my order had not been fulfilled because it was out of stock. At that point Husband suggested maybe we could drive through the Sonic for some coffee--"That might make you feel better?"

Finally we got home, Husband went back to the office to finish a project, and I started carrying in the bags. 

There, at the bottom of the piles of plastic bags, was a surprise. 

Instead of the six bags of frozen Brussels sprouts I had ordered was a cold 12-pack of Smirnoff Seltzer. 

Someone else's day had just been completely ruined, but mine was made. In my follow-up evaluation to the company I pointed out that it would have been nice if the surprise had been some form of chocolate, since the QueenBee family adheres to the "lips that touch alcohol will never touch mine" maxim but we do love our chocolate. Still, it was a lovely thought.

Surprise! And condolences to the recipient of the Brussels sprouts. I hope you love them as much as I would have.

I'm Choosing Hope

 

The pearls are for RBG.

The button is for smart, hardworking, windmill-tilting women.

The "I Voted" sticker is saved from when I voted in advance. 

The hope is for all of us.

Dear Baby Wonderful: The World Is Still Upside Down, But Toes

 

Toes!

Dear Baby Wonderful,

Well, well, well. I was truly hoping that if I closed my eyes tight and didn't blog during this weird, unexpected time that someday we would be able to gloss over the jaw-dropping weirdness of the months since you were born. We've had the pandemic, of course, and that has divided the world into Maskers and Idiots Non-Maskers. And we've had the presidential election, of course, and that has divided the nation into Red and Blue. We've had the two-day October ice storm that has divided absolutely no one because we can all agree that THIS IS INSANITY. 

So, business as usual for 2020. 

But over the weekend I was able once again to access the panacea that puts all of the 2020 madness into perspective, the healing balm that is the best medicine for what ails me. What ails me specifically is the ever-present low-grade rumble of fear that alternates with frequent spikes of terror, and the balm to this terror is baby toes.

Last weekend, when your mom and dad needed to focus on someone other than you (I know! How dare they!) I got to spend two days in Baby Nirvana. 

Okay, okay, it had only been two weeks since I had seen you. There's currently a self-indulgent, tone-deaf meme circulating that is based on a tweet by a person who's famous for being famous. "After 2 weeks of multiple health screens and asking everyone to quarantine, I surprised my closest inner circle with a trip to a private island where we could pretend things were normal just for a brief moment in time," she wrote.

Well. If that doesn't put into perspective the rift between the haves and have-nots, I don't know what does, but it turns out our family is among the haves and our private island was the House on the Corner. Two weeks ago, properly tested and quarantined, all of your immediate family of loved ones gathered for the first time since last Christmas. So many uncles! So much passing-around-of-the-baby! It was as if the universe had suddenly dropped into proper alignment for the first time in seven months. I spent the weekend nibbling your neck and patty-caking your feet together. And bouncing. Heavenly days, how you love to bounce.

I was still in the happiness hangover from that weekend when, last Friday, I was called to Granny-Nanny once more.

You had changed, just in those two weeks. You are not yet ready to crawl, but your rolling game is stellar and has become a way to get from Point A to Point B. You still like to be held on my lap in a position that gives you an upside-down view of the world, but now you very nearly have the six-pack abs to pull back up into a sitting position. And you are more and more able to communicate exactly what you want: It makes me laugh when you're done with sitting on the floor, thank you very much, and stiffen your arms and growl.

Perhaps my next-to-favorite moment is when we tussle over who should eat those delectable baby toes. I nibble on them and you laugh, then you grab them back and stuff them into your own mouth.

You have the reputation of being a terrible napper, though, so the very best time is when you've fallen asleep as I hold you and I know that there's no reason I need to put you in the crib. Then, with my iPad playing The Great British Baking Show on mute beside us, we rock and snooze and I know I'm living my very best life. 

This dreadful year has nearly ruined my faith in a large swath of my fellow human beings, and we still have a couple months to go before we can tear that page off the calendar and burn it ceremonially. But if the Pandora's Box that has been 2020 has included pandemic, politics, and pandemonium as its defining features, it's also included you. 

Baby toes always win.

Much love,

Grandma QueenBee

World Turned Upside Down: Wake Up and Smell the Toothpaste

 

Pandemic sister selfie

This is my morning routine: I wake up, get out of bed, stumble to the bathroom, sniff my toothpaste, ask Google to play the news while I brush my teeth ...

Yes, in another of those I-never-thought-I'd-be-doing-this moments, taking the cap off my toothpaste and inhaling deeply has become a part of the first moments of every day, and appreciating the heady aroma of Sensodyne Extra-Whitening is always followed by a single thought--"Oh, thank God. I still have my sense of smell."

Life in a pandemic means that self-assessment for symptoms is never-ending. Is that tickle in my throat a seasonal allergy or Covid? Am I feeling tuckered out because I just helped a Boy move ten gazillion boxes into his new digs or because that guy who walked way too close to me in the grocery story yesterday should have worn his mask UP OVER HIS NOSE?

(I apologize for the all-caps last phrase, but geeminy. If you have on a mask but are still expelling your aerosols through that enormous uncovered honker, I will not give you an wink of responsible solidarity but will mutter curses at you under my breath. Sheesh.)

Anyway, I have never appreciated smells more, because loss of smell and taste seem to be the most definitive of the Covid symptoms. Fever? Not good, but could be a lot of things. Sore throat? Ditto, and dittos also to runny nose, gastrointestinal symptoms, and nearly all the additional multitude of Very Bad (Or Perfectly Fine) Signs. The exceptions are the absence of taste or smell. If you notice these you should hie thee to the closest testing station.

The upside of having these two distinguishing symptoms is that I am really, really appreciating those senses these days. It's ironic, honestly, that they were often the senses I most wanted to damp down. If you've ever had a rotten potato in the spud bin, you know what I'm talking about. Now? Hey, that mushy potato smells TERRIBLE!  Yay! And the skunks who live on the hill seem to have visited a neighbor's dog! Hooray!

The Boy who was moving will now be at home in the city that is home to Much Younger Sister and practically within spittin' distance of the home of Much Older Sister. MOS welcomed Boy to their neck of the woods by bringing over the most most wonderful breakfast last week on unpacking day. 

We sat outside in lawn chairs, well-distanced, and balanced our plates on our laps as we removed our masks to dig in to breakfast casserole, the most decadent coffeecake ever concocted, and steaming cups of coffee. In the Before days I would have appreciated the food and the company but on that day? Every bite tantalized my nose before it went into my mouth, then the sweet-salty-savory-bitter reminded me that I was alive and well.

And truly, isn't this a gift during an awful time? The reassurance that we're still among the uninfected is savory and delicious and we are able to hold our breath and take a quick selfie with ones we love before we social distance again. 

Even with the skunks and rotten potatoes, I'll take it with gratitude.

World Turned Upside Down: Other Upside Down Things

Well, huh. So that's how one month without blogging goes by during a pandemic. It's a combination of whoosh, and slogginess, and what month is it anyway?

After four months we're settling into our pandemic habits. It is often not pretty, as those of us who are wearing our masks religiously cannot understand the resistance to this practice and sometimes regularly tend toward self-righteousness. (As St. Anthony Fauci famously said, "Now is the time to selflessly care for each other," and WHY ARE YOU NOT DOING THIS?")

It is enjoying knitting a wonderful project (oooh, so pretty!) and sadly postponing visits to my elderly dad and Baby Wonderful. It's safe but sacrificial friendship via Zoom then watching a freshman class and their germs from all over the nation move in literally across the street.

In other words, it's optimism with a constant, unremitting undertone of frustration and dread.

One of my projects to keep my mind off that undertone has been my sourdough. As of this morning it is still alive, more elderly than any sourdough I've been able to baby along in the past. Although I have not named it (my hat is off to those who christened Bread Pitt, Emilio Yeastevez, and Jane Dough) I've been able to produce some pretty tasty baked goods.

It had reached the point a few weeks ago when Husband saw a couple of yummy loaves on the cooling rack and sighed.

"More bread?" he made the mistake of saying in a manner I interpreted as being weary. (He denies this. We have been in the same house a lot lately.)

I flounced off with a mutter about how SOME husbands would be PLEASED to have fresh bread on the table and that maybe some APPRECIATION for the industriousness involved and blah blah blah. (Yes, I'm adorable.)

After reconsideration, I realized that there are other things that can be made from sourdough starter so the next discard day I turned the Yeaster Bunnie (Hey! I think I just named it!) into some cinnamon rolls. They looked and smelled delicious but the last thing the three people now under our roof need are a full dozen cinnamon rolls.

One of my friend-iest friends has been especially wonderful about letting me be all shrieky about masks and the lack thereof, so I offered her a couple of the warm rolls. She lives way across town, on the other side of the river and railroad tracks, but Boy#3 and I were headed for the Big City so we would drop them off on our way out of town.

My hands were full of knitting and masks so Three carried the little container of rolls to the car and we headed out. As we pulled into Friend's driveway, I asked him where he had put it. His eyes widened.

"It was on the top of the car so you could grab it as you got in," he told me. "Didn't you see it?"

I immediately called Husband to check the driveway. No, it wasn't there, so we headed back across town for replacements. With that container of rolls safely in  hand we made the turnaround and kept our eyes peeled for the original black container. One block, two, eight, and still no rolls.

We were over the railroad tracks and just moving onto the bridge when Three suddenly hit the brakes. There, in the middle of the right lane, was a small black plastic container. I jumped out and rescued it. Even though they'd been sitting upside down in the middle of the road for 20 minutes, the rolls were fine--warm and soft.

We gave Friend the replacement rolls, but for the next couple of days I had a roadkill roll with my morning coffee. They were delicious, and I grinned to think of their grand adventure.

It is, I think, a parable for the days we're living.

This is absolutely, completely, and emphatically not the way I would have chosen to live 2020. We were speeding down the road not realizing we were on top of the car until we slid off upside down into the middle of the lane.

But it is entirely possible that when we come through this, as we must and we will, we will have so much more appreciation for our lives and our loves and the many, many things we had taken for granted.

It will be delicious.

World Turned Upside Down: Let's Get Serious

This is the first, and I hope the last, blog photo you will ever see that I take of myself in a hospital bathroom.

I snapped it several weeks ago to send to Husband and our kids, with the accompanying text "Needless to say, I'm a mess and may deplete the hospital's mask supply."

I had just sent a loved one off to a complicated surgery, and that can lead to tears on the inside of glasses lens. I was worried about the surgery; I was worried about that surgery taking place in the middle of a pandemic; I was worried I wasn't up to the task of being the advocate for this loved one.

Spoiler alert: The loved one came through surgery magnificently, and is now being pampered in recovery.

It turns out that if you are going to require extended hospitalization during a pandemic, this was the exact right moment to schedule that surgery. Just one week earlier the no-visitors policy had been lifted at the giant Big City medical complex but only for one advocate/visitor per patient, and masks were required. The miles of corridors I walked toward the ICU and recovery room were mostly empty, so social distancing was easy.

As a person with at least four entries into the let's-kill-Grandma lottery (pulmonary embolisms/clotting disorder, age, weight, blood type) I have been scrupulous in my social distancing and mask wearing and seeing those choices endorsed by the medical folks were a great comfort. I never felt as if I had to check myself for symptoms of a deadly virus.

But at the end of the week's hospitalization we stopped at Target for extra home-care bandages.

People, it was horrendous. The store was crowded, social distancing was virtually non-existent, and masks were worn by perhaps one in ten shoppers. I scurried to the pharmacy and grabbed one other purchase then checked out.

How could I feel so safe in a place designed for sick people, and so threatened in a place designed for people who are well?

The answer, of course, comes down to a single fact. In one of these locations (the hospital) staff and visitors are doing their best to keep everyone safe and healthy, and in the other (the store) people apparently don't care about this. In one everyone was paying attention to CDC recommendations and science, and in the other...well, not so much.

Yesterday, in the face of our state's ever-rising infection numbers, our governor mandated that everyone should be masked in public places. Not in our homes, not in our cars, but any time we're likely to be in contact with the aerosol exhalations of someone we don't live with. This is the very lowest bar we have to step over in slowing the pandemic--we're not being asked to once again close ourselves in our homes for months on end (although I continue to think "I need a tattoo" is a terrible reason for going out).

It is a way to tell people around us "I care for you, and I don't want you to get sick and die, so I will wear a mask to protect you from me." 

And still, my Facebook feed is packed with people who are literally frothing at the mouth with their uncontrolled rage at being asked to wear a mask. For a variety of reasons they have decided to disbelieve the most up-to-date science. 

I do not understand this. 

Because it's uncomfortable? So is a ventilator. Because it doesn't keep you from Covid? No, but it keeps us from sharing our sneeze-slobber, and sneeze-slobber is the surest way to pass the virus along. Because you aren't feeling sick? Allow me to introduce you to the folks who have covid but no symptoms, because as many as half of the people who are potential Typhoid Covid Marys have no symptoms at all. Don't have a mask? If you live in my zip code and don't have a mask, let me know. I will give you one. Because it is a symbol of government tyranny and YOU ARE FREEEE??? I...have no words, but if I did, the words would include the descriptors "inexplicable" and possibly "uncaring."

And now I will get into the toe-stepping-on portion of today's lecture. My fellow Christians, the ones who are pro-life but refuse to wear masks? You do see the irony, right? That your asymptomatic Covid could kill actual post-birth human beings? You understand that you are telling me, with my increased chances of dying from this disease, that in spite of your holy hugs and declarations of devotion you don't care enough to wear a mask to decrease the chances I will die a horrible, painful, death by suffocation? 

I was already a mask wearer, but during that week at the hospital I wore masks all the time. I cried in them (and man, are they uncomfortable when they're all snotty inside), I laughed in them, I slept in them, I talked to my dear one non-stop through them. Because if there was a single thing I could do to prolong someone else's life or my own, I wanted to do it. I was frantically worried about my loved one, but I did not have the additional worry that someone was sneezing pandemic death my way, or the way of any of the patients.

Think about that. And wear a mask.

Dear Baby Wonderful: Grandma's Here!

Dear Baby Wonderful,

When I sat down at the computer this morning I wasn't sure if I remembered how to blog. It's been so long since the last post--May was a month of stories that weren't mine to share, which is an occupational hazard for family bloggers. You might notice that this is the first post to lead with your beautiful face in almost three months.

The world you joined has been, quite frankly, a mess during that quarter of a year. Everyone has been socially distanced and societally outraged, economically shattered and politically appalled.

You, my dear one, have been pretty much the best thing in the world and you were six hours away. But the initial wave of pandemic was subsiding a couple weeks ago when your dad called me.

"I don't know if you'd be interested, but our parental leave will run out two weeks before Baby Wonderful's spot in day care opens up. Any chance you'd like to come over for a week and be a nanny?"

 Remember that gif I posted a couple decades months ago? Yeah. Pretty much that.

I have to admit that I was a little nervous about being the grown-up in the room for a full week with you. I mean, it's been a long time since I held a baby that I didn't return to its proper owners within a few minutes. We've been FaceTiming with you almost every day since you were born, but you have a shocking tendency to be bored with your grandparents' faces within a few seconds. I know! It seems impossible that we wouldn't be riveting conversationalists, and yet...

As it turns out, some things have changed.

Stuffed toys and board books are so pre-pandemic as gifts to be pulled out of the tote bag on arrival. Note the bee-themed mask in your photo today--a colorful AND practical house gift. (Also totally a photo prop since the internet misled Grandma and she severely underestimated the pumpkin-sized noggin you inherited from your paternal grandparents' sides of the family. It almost pulled your sweet little ears completely off but you were a good sport for the five seconds it took to snap the picture.)

 Also mind-boggling are the strides that have been made in baby gear during the past few decades. Somewhere I have a picture of your father in his umbrella stroller. Umbrella strollers are essentially a sling of fabric between two cane-shaped rods that are attached to a cheap set of wheels, and your dad was slumped in that thing like a half-raised batch of bread dough. Your stroller, on the other hand, had dual sun blockers, a five-point harness system, and solid state ignition. (Okay, it didn't have solid state ignition. Or at least I didn't use that feature.) Ditto on the advances for the swing, and we won't even mention your fancy bassinet that not only rocks you to sleep, it also senses if you get squirmy in the night and ROCKS YOU BACK TO SLEEP. I'm not kidding when I say it has a back-up camera so that your parents can check on you from any room in the house.

But some things haven't changed.

You, like your father and uncles, are a chatty baby. The best part of each day was the moment in the morning when I came out of the guest room to find you in your spot next to the breakfast table, and said "Why good morning, Baby Wonderful!" Your grin took over your whole body, and you wiggled and laughed. Often you would wind up to tell me something, pursing your lips and gazing at me intently before saying something unutterably wise. At least I assume it was wise; you gave it great depth.

You, like your father and uncles, are easily roused from naps. That was an easy fix, though, because once you drifted off to sleep on my shoulder I had the luxury of just holding you until you woke up, even if that meant we dozed in the recliner for hours. Nothing is more soporific than the presence of a sleeping baby, and I would like to apologize to your parents for ruining your bed-napping forever.

I spent a full week kissing your neck, watching you knot and unknot your hands as if casting baby magic, and making you put up with my irresistible urge to patty-cake your feet together.

And I discovered something I had known instinctively but had never experienced.

I found I could forgive you pretty much anything. I laughed when you barfed on me within seconds of my arrival and didn't mind that I smelled like baby spit-up, except for brief moments immediately  after showering, for the next five days. Or there was the day I was changing your dirty diaper when you decided it would be appropriate to deposit the second stage of that intestinal evacuation directly into my palm. With any other kid I would have had to amputate my hand but with you, again, I laughed.

You see, there is something deep and primeval about the bond of kinship. With rare exceptions my interest in babies has been minimal for the past 27 years. I loved your father and uncles instinctively, totally, rawly, with a bond nearly visible in its intensity. No other baby had ignited that same fierce emotion when I held them and I was afraid it might be gone forever.

But then there was you, my Baby Wonderful.

I can't wait to kiss your neck again.

Much love,

GrandmaQueenBee

World Turned Upside Down: On the Up Side

Mah Bay-bee!

Husband has the kind of job and profession that mean the stay-at-home orders have had little effect on his day-to-day work habits. He still goes to the office every morning, because foot traffic in a self-employed CPA's office is usually by invitation only. He maintains social distancing and wears a mask so even in my shrieky germ-phobic state of constant panic that causes me to never answer the doorbell, I'm not worried he'll bring the pandemic home with him.

But our New Normal has caused one slight bit of friction: Every day when he comes home from tilting at the tax monsters and slaying the PPP loan requirements, he asks the same question he has asked daily for 36+ years: "So, how was your day today? What did you do?"

In the Old Normal I'd have plenty to talk about. I worked, and I had meetings, and I met with friends for lunch or coffee, and I free-lanced, and I...well, you get the picture. Now I stay at home. Period.

For the first few weeks of lockdown  when he asked me how my day was, and what I did, I stared at him as if I were posing for an I-don't-know-the-answer meme. People, no more!

(Please read the following as if you were Tom Hanks dancing around a fire in Castaway.)

I have made sourdough! 

As a farm girl I have known how to make bread since I was old enough to stand on a stool next to my mother and knead a piece of dough. But despite multiple tries I have never before successfully cultivated my own leavening using only the yeasty particles floating around in the air.

It's a process that is not so much difficult as finicky, requiring persistence and and a certain amount of waste. In other words, it's much like parenting, and for most of my adult life I was spending all my parenting energy trying to keep four boys from throwing rocks at the cars stopped at the stop sign next to our house. (True story.)

Now, though, with all of those rock-throwers staying at their own homes in four different states, I decided I had the time and bandwidth try starting a starter once more.

Friends, raising children to adulthood was a piece of cake compared to the neediness that is a piece of sourdough bread. I had to add a half cup of flour and a cup of lukewarm water every day to a jar of flour paste I kept in the oven with the light on for the precise degree of warmth. Then the instructions called for the half cup of flour and cup of lukewarm water to be stirred into the sullen glop twice a day for several days, long enough that I was quite certain I had somehow ruined the mixture and would be throwing it out. Only the mutters of "feeeeed me" I heard when I opened the oven door kept me going.

But apparently those were the sourdough equivalence of the teenage years because one day I peered in the oven to find that the mixture had matured! It was bubbly, yeasty-smelling, glorious sourdough starter!

In the week since the starter became an actual living presence in my refrigerator I have made crackers with the goop you normally throw away at feeding time:

Yummy, basil-y deliciousness

Then I made pizza dough and topped it with homemade pizza sauce, the final ham left over from Easter (don't clutch your pearls; it had been in the freezer), and fresh pineapple from the produce share program.

You are not wrong that this dough appears to have risen beyond my expectations. It was the deepest deep dish ever, with the crust depth outpacing the toppings by a ratio of about 10:1.

But that was to make up for the only true failure I've had with this recipe, which would be the bread. It looks okay, doesn't it?

That will teach you to judge a bread by its photo, because it was approximately two inches high. I mis-read the instructions and seriously underkneaded the dough, which resulted in such a soft loaf it couldn't rise up and only rose sideways.

And frankly, that could be a description of me after this many days of baking. I'm getting softer and softer, and beginning to rise sideways. But what did I do today? Now when Husband asks that I don't even have to answer.

I just shove something sourdough in his mouth.

World Turned Upside Down: My! What Big Ears You Have!

The original title I had planned for this post was "What I Did During the Pandemic." It would be useful, I thought, to remember what occupied my time during these days of sudden stay-apart. No meetings, no coffee with friends, no work schedule...what in the world did I do?

Well, as we all have discovered, it is quite possible to have meetings, coffee with friends, and work schedule even as we observe the social distancing guidelines. Hello, Zoom! My calendar has proceeded to fill up with appointments that do not require me to comb the back of my hair or worry about a pedicure.

But there also is time for other activities that have fallen off the priorities list for years. One of those activities is puttering around in the yard.

When we moved to Small Town three decades ago, a friend who lived here gave us outstanding real estate advice. "You'll find all kinds of houses, and there's a house there you're going to love," he told us. "Just be aware that there's a slum on every block." We weren't exactly sure what he meant until we began looking in earnest and discovered he was right--the pristine lawn of a a gorgeous Victorian could exist cheek-by-jowl with a lawn overflowing with car carcasses on blocks.

The House on the Corner was somewhere between those two extremes: certainly not pristine, but we did try to keep the cars off the lawn, at least until the Boys were in high school. At that point we had seven cars for six people and every inch of curb space was occupied when everyone was home. The lawn was showing the effects of being on the corner of two drainage streets that spilled across the corner in heavy rains, so nothing was growing except weeds.

We had become the slum on our block.

But then the tide began to turn as the nest emptied and the fledglings took their cars with them. With the help of our genius landscaping guy we've started to push back, one year building up the corner landscaping to divert the floods, last year improving the soil and re-sodding the back yard. The front yard is next on the list, but this year it's still been a riot of dandelions and chickweed.

"But this year I have time to spend in the yard every day!" I crowed to Husband. "I'm going to get rid of all those weeds without getting within six feet of anyone! Plus, it's too early for mosquitoes so I won't even need to use the Off."

That last statement is known as foreshadowing.

Last Thursday, after a refreshing rain the previous night, I happily spent the morning stooped over a dandelion digger, filling a full-sized garbage can with the leafy results. I was tired but happy as I looked at the lawn, still raggedy but less appalling than before.

That's when I came back into the house and looked at my bare forearms and shins.

They were covered with tiny blood spots--what I had thought were harmless clouds of gnats were actually swarms of tiny biting flies, and they had jumped on me like, well, like flies on poop.

Within hours I was a seething mass of itch. Originally I was determined to not scratch, but the gods laughed. Every place that had been touched turned into a hot, torturous welt. My already-substantial ears swelled until they were solid masses, as hard and plastic as Mr. Potato Head's. (Today's illustration is frighteningly true to life, except that I was wearing a shirt, and my mustache hasn't quite reached that stage. Yet.)

It's been three days now since I lost half of my total blood capacity to the gnats. I've learned that while itch creams and Benadryl claim to be effective, cold washcloths are the only remedy that even approach relief. Time also helps; after three days, I'm still covered with welts but I am hopeful I will not actually go insane from the itch.

I may go out and work on the weeds again in a couple of days, but I will be slathered with bug repellent and wearing long sleeves and jeans.

My ears may not be able to survive a beautiful lawn.

World Turned Upside Down: It's About to Get Ugly

I feel as if this post needs to come with some trigger alerts.

Did you ever see a pair of scissors on the edge of the bathroom vanity when you were four years old and think "I wonder how sharp these scissors are? Would they cut hair?" then a few minutes later see the horrified look on your mother's face as she realizes you no longer have a pixie cut, but a demented frankencut that would ruin the family portrait that year?

Did you ever think to yourself "My bangs are really getting on my nerves but the rest of my hair seems to be okay. I'll just trim off a little," then hear your hairdresser say "Don't ever, ever, ever do that again. Ever."?

Did you ever think "How hard could it be to cut boy hair? Let's see, four boys times $15 per cut would save me...Holy cow! $60 a month! I'm rich!" and then have to put up with actual tears when you made them go back to school for the first time?

It will shock you not at all to know that I am the person in all of those scenarios, so if you've had similar experiences it will also shock you not at all to know that in the fifth week of the pandemic beauty parlor shut-down my hair hit the tipping point of driving me crazy. That coincided with finding our old Wahl Homecut system in the sewing room last week, as well as a pack of my mother-in-law's bobby pins that for some unknown reason I had kept when we cleaned out her apartment.

And in spite of my past history with do-it-myself haircuts, that seemed like an omen, because this morning I looked in the mirror and saw this:

Whoops. That was where the trigger alert should have been. Even the Singing Butler's umbrella-holding maid behind me seems to be overcome by...shock? Horror?  My hair, which is thin and fine, is normally cut much shorter and product-ed into a semblance of normal style. But in my defense, because my hair is thin and fine and I'm not seeing anyone except Husband, my hair style technique has become "Don't look into mirrors." Also in my defense, this was post-workout and pre-shower.

I've trained for this moment for years, though, by watching countless Facebook videos of women cutting their own hair and then looking at themselves with appalled eyes. Also, I actually owned, and used, a FlowBee.



I always knew I'd regret selling it at a garage sale for $2, but since none of the Boys had let me near their heads with it for at least a decade, I thought the shelf space could have been put to better use. The packrat in me is grinning smugly and saying "Told ya so."

So this morning I decided I'd had enough of the situation on the top of my head, and set to work with the shears and fancy comb out of the clipper set. I wet down my hair with the spray bottle that lives next to the ironing board, then bobby-pinned back the middle section and started around my face, making the tiny diagonal cuts the pros use in YouTube videos. Obviously those barbers don't have two bum shoulders each, though, because by the time I'd finished with the bangs and ear areas, my technique had changed drastically. Here's the new technique:

1. Use hand mirror to check the back of my head.
2. Grab a medium-sized handful of hair.
3. WHACK!

It was much easier than all that fiddly-fiddly snippy-snippy stuff. And do you know what? Not only do I not have to look at it, no one on any of the half-dozen Zoom meetings I have every week is seeing me from behind.

Here's the "after," in which I'm giving thanks that even though my hair is thin and fine it also has some natural curl, and Tresemme Flawless Curls mousse is a miracle product. Also, I've shifted photo studios to the downstairs bathroom where the light is better.

It feels much better and the umbrella-holding maid isn't saying a word.

The World Turned Upside Down: I Venture Out

Easter morning. For two people.

Is it just me? Or are we transitioning into the section of the New Abnormal where it kind of begins to feel like, well, Normal?

On Easter Sunday, for example, it did not feel completely alien to wear a flower-patterned face mask while playing "Christ The Lord Is Risen Today" in a sanctuary containing only eight people. And while I haven't quite managed the proportions of cooking Easter dinner for two (64 dinner rolls may have been excessive) there was a certain relaxation in knowing that if the roasted asparagus was overcooked (which it was) the only other diner was the most non-judgmental of dinner partners.

I have gotten the routines of stay-at-home internalized, and for the first time in my life am enjoying exercise every day. I'm reading the local library's group-read selection, knitting with soft yarn, and watching all the Masterpiece Theater in the world. I've had time to cover and uncover all my about-to-bloom peonies and geraniums and lily-of-the-valleys against the threat of a late freeze and I'm ready to be done with that, if you please, Mother Nature.

Zoom has become my new BFF, and pretty much all the appointments now on my calendar come with a link. In fact, yesterday I taught my very first piano lesson via Zoom, and it went fairly well. It helps that this is the nicest kid in the world and his mother had contacted me to see if I could pick back up the lessons we'd barely gotten started at semester break. I'm pretty sure this was partly through self-preservation: If he actually was practicing an hour each day, which I absolutely believe he was because he's the nicest kid in the world, his mother was probably ready to gouge her ears with knitting needles at one more day of "The Campbells Are Coming." Anyway, it was delightful to see and hear him.

This morning I made my first foray into the outside world in a couple of weeks (Sunday's piano playing at church excepted).

It was weird.

The only thing I can compare it to was when I joined the Peace Corps and first landed in an international airport. I was exhausted and overwhelmed and everything seemed vaguely threatening, even though no one else seemed alarmed. 

It didn't help that this first trip out was a doctor's appointment. a foray  into what is possibly the most germ-laden arena possible. As it turns out, the natural aging processes do hot hit the "pause" button just because the world is in a medical crisis. Some vague symptoms I've had for a couple weeks were diagnosed as high blood pressure so I have a new prescription and appointments for follow-up.

But one observation on my two-hour excursion into the outer world: Women are better than men when it comes to wearing face masks and observing social distancing. In the waiting room were two men (unmasked and seated somewhat close together) and two women (both masked and sitting so far apart six inches more would have put them into separate parking lots). Who knew that common sense and following of pandemic protocol was a Y-chromosome-linked trait? I will let you answer that one for yourself. Of course, this does not apply to Husband, who patiently dons the masks I've made before he goes into the world of humans. He's a great hand-washer, and has learned to Zoom meetings like a champ.

Now I'm back in the safe confines of the House on the Corner again, and all surfaces that went with me on my excursion have been wiped down and sanitized.

All is Normal again and that thought is comforting, if surreal.

World Turned Upside Down: Cover Up! Stay Away!

Nearly every day of this New Abnormal I find myself saying something I never dreamed I would say. A few days ago that something was "Huh. I'm not too bad at making masks for use during a pandemic."

It seemed perfectly normal to be talking about digging out the fabric I had planned to use someday for craft projects and jerry-rigging facial coverings I hoped would keep my family and friends from dying.

I mean, we all see the absurdity of this, right? That the most powerful and wealthy nation in the world doesn't have enough medical masks, so all of us housewives are chipping in as if we were melting our cookware down for bullets like they did in World War II?

Hmmm...someone seems to have a little anger mixed in with her worry this morning.

Part of my anger, I have to admit, is directed toward those who do not seem to take seriously their own responsibility in flattening the curve. Again, I fully own that my part in this effort is easier than most people have it. We natural introverts aren't chafing as much at the thought of puttering around the house and sewing a few masks before spending an hour or so in the back yard picking up the spikey pods our sweetgum tree continues to shed. 

Do I have any right to criticize the mob of kids (and their parents) I see playing on the community basketball court? Or the un-masked older folks I see peering over each other's shoulders to watch videos on a shared phone?

Well, yes. I believe I do.

There's a lot we don't know about this virus, but one thing we do know is that you catch it by breathing in the virus an infected person has breathed out, or touching a live virus on a surface and somehow getting that into your mouth, nose, or eyes. We also know that a person can be infected, and infectious, without showing any symptoms. So all those kids jostling each other on the basketball court? Could be infecting all the families involved.  And those phone videos? Almost impossible to be head-touching close without sharing at least some breath.

And don't even get me started on the churches that aren't cancelling Easter services, and the spring break trips, and the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

We know that the health care and grocery store workers don't have any choice but to be out in this flurry of germs so that we can get medical care and eat, and we know that those workers are catching the virus and dying.

My dad is 93. Baby Wonderful is four weeks old today. One of my sons has a heart condition. Husband and I are in the age and (for me) health categories that make us candidates for the higher death rate among those who get the disease.

Wear your masks. Cough into your elbow. Keep away from everyone you don't live with.

Do it for yourself and your family, for me and my family, for the health care workers and grocery clerks and pharmacists.

Do your part or I will yell at you. We're all ready to be done with the New Abnormal.

World Turned Upside Down: My New Normal

Pre- and post-mulch. 

I had several blog posts running through my head during the decade that has been March. Have you ever seen time come to a screeching halt at this rate? From dashing from day to day we suddenly have fallen into a temporal pool of bewildering quicksand* in which we are worrying about having enough toilet paper but have all the time in the world.

What even is this?

In two weeks we have gone from "you might want to wash your hands" to a mandatory stay-at-home order. So how do we react when there has been a seismic shift in well, everything?

I can only speak for myself, of course, but after about a week of flailing around and pandemic baking (scones, cinnamon rolls, two kinds of cookies) I am seeing a glimmer of settling into a routine. That is a good thing, since this is not going to be a small blip in our lives. I mean, judging by the rate at which March passed, we may have gone into the year 2507 by the time April is over. We will need a new normal.

My new normal is this: Do some stuff every day.

That's it. My whole plan. I mean, except that I am a two-time loser in the endangered category game (age, clotting issues that led to lung issues), I am the person least affected by the pandemic. I am not a health care worker--sincerely, God bless them. I am not the parent of small children now trying to keep them socially distanced and occupied. I am not the sole provider who has been laid off of a job. I am not the minimum wage retail employee who can't work from home, but still has to figure out child care. 

In spite of my how easy this should be for me, that first week when we discovered how bad this is was really crappy and I felt the oily black fog moving in around my feet. I spent a lot of time panicking, and I binge-watched all of "Tiger King."**

So now I am working on my coping methods that include prayer and exercise and writing, and I'm doing stuff that I honestly did not have time for a month ago.

This morning I pulled out an old piano book and worked on a Bach two-part invention and one of my mother's favorite songs ("Narcissus") that she would play while Much Older Sister and I danced around the living room. How long has it been since I worked to play the piano better just for the sheer joy of playing?

Husband and I spent Saturday morning spreading two pick-up loads of cedar mulch in our formerly desolate back yard. Our genius landscaping guy's crew had laid sod back there in the fall but in the shaded area around the maple tree he recommended mulch, which we hadn't anticipated we'd have time to install until at least after April 15. Guess what? Already done!

My oldest and dearest friends are working on a project that has us writing an essay every day, with the prompts working through the alphabet. We're already up to M. (Or N, if you don't take weekends off, which I do.)

I've planned a cleaning schedule that will go into effect...soon-ish? And I have a stack of t-shirts that I'll be making into my seventh t-shirt quilt. I've learned how to Zoom meet-ups with friends, and now have three of them scheduled each week. In addition to my regular exercise bike and walk routine I've added a Silver Sneakers Live Facebook session three times a week. Highly recommend.

So I'm doing stuff. It helps.

What are you doing? Is it helping you?



*Here I'd normally insert that meme that says "When I was a kid I thought that quicksand was going to be a much bigger problem than it is," but you've seen it, and if I were that meme's creator and obeying a stay-at-home order I'd spend all my time looking for people I could sue for copyright infringement. 
** No regrets on this front, although I was ready to break stay-at-home to drive to Oklahoma to extricate my Boy#4 from that state. But it was worth spending those hours with my jaw dropped full open just for the memes. No, I'm not going to link the memes. You can Google that yourself.

Dear Baby Wonderful: The World Turned Upside Down

Dear Baby Wonderful,

Before you were born I had imagined a whole new world with you in it. I imagined how just knowing you were here, with your brains and your personality and your potential, would change my entire outlook. I imagined the books I would read to you, using different voices for every character and not even caring if you decided to turn the pages right to left instead of left to right. I imagined tucking you in and singing "I'll be loving you, always..." to lull you to sleep just like I did your daddy and uncles. I imagined a clean junk drawer in the kitchen.

(Not really on that last item. But two weeks ago I was suddenly struck with the irresistible urge to organize the drawer under the coffeepots that has always been the repository of birthday candles, the upstairs hammer and pliers, pizza coupons, picture-hanging paraphernalia, gum, and other miscellaneous stuff. For years that drawer hasn't opened except under duress, but that day I had HAD it with that mess. Seven hours later I saw your face for the first time. Nesting: It Isn't Just For Parents.)

(Also, since we're being all parenthetical now, the reason there's a picture of the junk drawer instead of the one we got yesterday of you grinning in your sleep and wearing a HI! onesie is because your Dad and Mom are understandably reluctant to share the innermost workings of your life with the internet. I think that's an excellent decision, but may lead to some interesting illustrations.)

Anyway, you were the big news that day but since then you've been knocked off the front pages by...what do we even call this turn of events? Circumstances, let's say.

The very day we kissed you goodbye and headed back to the House on the Corner we began to find out that the scientists had been correct, and shockingly, the politicians had been wrong when they told us there was nothing to worry about from that virus clear across the world. (Here is your first bit of English instruction for today: You notice the word "shockingly" in the last sentence? That's known as sarcasm, and you'll find that your grandmother fights her tendency to use sarcasm but that the sarcasm often wins.)

The very next day we started washing our hands every time we saw a faucet, and since then we've stopped hugging, kept our distance from other people, and now are having lunch with our friends through the Zoom app on our computers.

It's been quite an adjustment for me. Schools have been cancelled, so I'm not working. All of my regular groups and clubs are not meeting. Music contests and lessons were called off.

I vividly remember taking out my phone and deleting every event on the calendar, one after another, for the next two months.

Your parents have been wonderful about FaceTiming every evening so we can see you--what a beautiful boy you are! And five whole ounces above your birth weight! (Your doctor said you're a "champion eater," so we know with certainty that you're part of our family.)

You're often asleep during those video sessions and every once in a while you suddenly throw out an arm, or kick a tiny leg. I understand this is quite normal, as your nervous system begins to figure out the world.

That kick, that startled jerk, is what I've been feeling as we begin to figure out our own new world. Our schedules, the daily-ness of our days, was the womb that was nice and tight around us to make us feel secure. (That, dear one, is a metaphor.)

We're figuring out life, just as you are. It's still spring so it's lovely and bright, but there are times when it's quite scary and we have to train our reflexes. In this case, we're taming the impulse to be social so that we can get back to the parts of the world we miss--the hugs, the handshakes, the smiles.

We're fighting the impulse to be scared.

The "before" world we had just a few weeks ago has been turned upside down, but the "after" will be a world with you in it. You'll come visit the House on the Corner and we'll read books and bake cookies and I'll let you get a piece of gum out of the junk drawer as soon as you have teeth.

The snuggles and hugs with you will make all of this staying apart to stay safe worthwhile.


And I'll be loving you, always, 

GrandmaQueenBee

Dear Dad,

This picture is from 2017, and it still makes me laugh. 

My father is 93. He still swims every day, lifeguards at the fitness center pool twice a week, faithfully participates in church and is the lay leader once each month, and never misses Rotary. And he is the poster child as the perfect COVID-19 target. Not only is he in the worst possible age group, he's also had quintuple-bypass surgery and is on a variety of medicines for various age-related conditions. 

Dad did not believe the coronovirus advisories were aimed at him, and too much exposure to Fox News led him to believe it was probably a hoax anyway. Two days ago my brother had a hard conversation with him that included mentioning his children were ready to confiscate his keys to keep him on the farm. Last night I wrote him this email, and my Much Older Sister thinks it might be helpful to some of you, my dear reader(s). Feel free to copy and adapt to your own circumstances.

March 18, 2020

Dad, I'm honestly so sorry about all the disruption to your daily schedule. I know you are not good at "doing nothing and doing it well," so it's especially hard on you. You like activity. 

I had been finding myself kind of flailing around with the lack of structure and activities, so I decided to give myself a daily schedule of things I needed/wanted to do and can do without leaving home or coming into contact with people, and I wondered if something similar might be helpful to you.

In my case, I listed the things I like to do or want to do--knitting, writing, reading, exercising (long walk and time on the exercise bike), playing the piano, deep cleaning several rooms in the house, getting rid of old clothes, working in the yard, etc. Then I decided I'd do at least three things from the list every day. So far it's working. Yesterday I exercised, worked in the yard, and wrote a blog post. Today I've exercised, worked in the yard, written a press release for an event, and worked on organizational stuff. 

I wonder if you could make a similar list? If I know you, things on the list would include writing entries for your StoryWorth project (I can send you a long list of questions), walking at the football field track, playing Solitaire, doing a jigsaw puzzle, working in the yard, Bible study, doing crossword puzzles, going through paperwork in the office and throwing out duplicates, etc. You might want to go through your clothes and make bags of things that you don't wear any more for donation to the Economy Shop, or set a goal of reading the Bible Genesis to Revelation.

I'd also suggest that you'd be great at writing emails to people who might be bored during this time--I know you have at least four grandsons who would be delighted to get personal emails from you, and there's a good chance they might write back. 

You know yourself, so you know what kind of things you might be able to add to the list, but get a list going, and pick three things off of it every day. I plan to make this a habit for the next several weeks, because I want to see my grandson again and if people are NOT staying away from other people COMPLETELY, there's a good chance the virus will come my way and keep me from ever seeing him again.

May I also suggest you not watch Fox News? The information they are spreading is often untrue, and is almost never in your best interest. If you must watch the news, I can give you some recommendations for news outlets (PBS comes immediately to mind).

I love you, Dad--this is our new World War II moment, but we're all in this together. 

Much love, 

Me

I'll Love You Forever

Dear Baby Wonderful,

It was a week ago, almost to the minute, that your father sent the text:

"Hi, all. (LovelyGirl#) went into labor last night, and they admitted her to the hospital this AM. If all goes according to plan, Baby Insertnamehere will arrive sometime today."

Oh, my.

I was in the second day of spring break, so I had been having a leisurely morning, exercise bike and a walk before the New York Times crossword and a large cappucino. I shrieked and grabbed the phone to call your grandfather, who was just coming out of a meeting with a client.

"So what do we do now?" he asked innocently. I was not so gentle in my answer.

"GET IN THE CAR!"

Within minutes I had showered and we had thrown overnight bags together. (You would think that having gone through four births first-hand we would have known to have those bags ready, but we apparently had forgotten that babies don't always wait until their due dates.) And then we were on the road for the six-hour trip to where you were about to make your entrance. Boy#4 marked the moment in our ongoing family group text:

Racing Speeding GIF from Racing GIFs

"Mom and Dad right now," he texted.


Not really. We drove safely and carefully, like, well, like your grandpa and grandma do, and by late afternoon we were within half an hour of the hospital. A text came from your father: "How far out were we?" I turned to my husband--"I think we're grandparents."

Sure enough, when we walked into the hospital room, there was your mother, sitting on the bed looking tired but beaming, holding a tiny baby-burrito bundle. I gave my son a quick, hard hug, fighting back tears as he told us that you had been named after your two grandfathers.

Then I bent down to look inro your face for the very first time.

Your eyes were open, and you were looking around. Without exaggeration, you were the most beautiful baby I'd ever seen. Your father and uncles were in my heart, grown under it and possessing it from the time they took their first breaths. But they were not beautiful.

You? You had perfect skin, lovely features, and those eyes. They were wise and attentive, calmly taking in what must have been an overwhelming variety of sights.

"Oh, it's you," I told you. "We have waited for you for a long time, and you are so, so beautiful."

Later I would let you know that you also appeared to be smart and kind, just so you wouldn't get hung up on physical appearance. But you only get one chance to make a first impression, and in that first millisecond I fell in love with you.

Later we would find out that your warrior mother had been in labor all of the previous day, but didn't want to go to the hospital too early so she went to work, then made it through the night. You will know an important thing about your parents when you realize that they waited, timing increasingly frequent contractions, until the polls opened so they could be voters 3 and 4 in the state primary.

The next day I cried again when we left for home. The emotions at seeing my child holding his child were just too overwhelming to not leak out of my eyes and trickle down my cheeks.

And then, of course, the world changed completely. What had just a couple of days before been laughed at as a hoax by people who should have known better finally was recognized as the threat it had been for weeks and weeks. We were told to stay at home, to not touch each other, to not gather in groups.

If you had decided to wait until your due date to enter the world we would probably been kept from greeting you and holding you, but now I have the unforgettable memory of cuddling you into my neck and whispering to you.

Today your parents make a point of calling every night and turning the FaceTime camera on you so that we can watch you sleep, or kick your long, narrow feet. I do color commentary on every changing expression of your face--"Look! He's smiling!" "Was that a yawn or a frown?" "He's changing so fast!"  I croon to you, hoping you'll recognize my voice the next time we see you--"Hey, Baby Wonderful!" "Hey, Big Fella!"

It will be a while before we are able to hold you again. It looks as if things will get much worse before they get better, and while I'm doubly furious at the people who STILL aren't taking this seriously, your grandfather and I have taken to heart the two catchphrases that meant nothing even two weeks ago--social distancing, and flattening the curve.

We want to stay safe and healthy because we want to be in your life for a long, long time. I want to read every book in the world to you, and comb your hair funny, like grandmas do.

I can't wait to hold you again.


Much love,

GrandmaQueenBee

He Is Wonderful

Two hours old

The Lord bless you and keep you, 

the Lord make His face shine upon you 

and be gracious unto you,

the Lord lift up His countenance upon you

and give you peace.

You Will Be Born in the Spring

Dear Baby Wonderful,

This morning I took my usual walk that circles the three blocks nearest the House on the Corner. You know that walk--it's the one that comes after I've spent half an hour on the exercise bike in the basement, when I go out to cool down and pretend everyone has suddenly been struck blind and can't see me in my workout clothes.

We had thought, as we do every day now, that yesterday might be the day we would get the call that would catapult us into the car and down the road toward where you'll make your appearance some time very soon. It wasn't your day, though, and as I walked this morning I saw earthworms that had migrated to the sidewalks after last night's showers, and rhubarb poking its wrinkled leaves through the rotting leaves of last year's crop. I saw a robin making a breakfast of one of those worms, and even though it was kind of gross, it made me smile.

And I was glad you hadn't been born yesterday, because until today I hadn't yet been struck with the wonder: You will be born in the spring.

You see, we're having kind of a crappy time on earth right now. Some day you'll read about it in history books; maybe your dad and mom will mention it when they tell you about your birth day. All over the world people are scared to touch each other, so we bump our elbows together or wave nervously across a room. The global economic system is scared, too, and is wiping out a lot of the resources us old people have worked to retire on. And in our country people are just so angry, so tired, so filled with rage at the political system.

I saw a wall plaque once, though, that said "Babies are God's opinion that the world should go on."

If you know me at all by now you know that the sentiments on most wall plaques make me roll my eyes. Today that sentiment made so much sense to me.

Even with everything that's going on, we have spring. We have rhubarb and robins and showers that lull us to sleep.

You, my Wonderful? You have even more than that. You have a mother who made me wish you would be born on the International Day of the Woman--she's so smart and strong, so persistent. You have a father who feels things so deeply and takes care of all of us, and who will protect you fiercely. And they're so, so funny, so compassionate. So kind. Don't ever forget how important that is.

You have a world out there waiting to go on, waiting for you.

And you will be born in the spring.

Much love,

G.

Dear Beatles: The Answer Is 'Yes.'

We interrupt the unremitting barrage of delighted baby-anticipating squeals to answer the question  articulated best by the Beatles in 1967:

Will you still need me, will you still feed me when I'm 64?

Well, Paul McCartney (who apparently first asked this question at the wise old age of SIXTEEN, holy cow), in the case of the handsome guy seen above, the answer to your question is an unreserved YES! Let me explain.

Sunday afternoons are sacred to me, in that I take a holy nap every single Sunday afternoon. Last Sunday after church and lunch I set the volume of a 1940s-era movie to "soothing," pulled a cozy afghan up to my chin, hit the recline button on my chair, and drifted off sleep. Two hours later I woke up to find Husband had put a note on the book still open in my lap.

"I'm at the office but I'll be back at 5:30. Be ready to go."

What?

Then at 5:15 he called--"Are you ready to go?" Well, no, not unless you count pajama pants and an old sweatshirt as ready to go. "Just put on some jeans."

By that point I was completely baffled. He knows I don't go out in public in jeans (see also: People of Walmart I Don't Want to Be) so we weren't going to the movies. We had seen an interesting house with a "For Sale" sign on it, even though we have no plans of moving from the House on the Corner--were we going to relive our first dates when we trolled open houses even before we knew we'd be sharing one?

Finally his pick-up pulled up at the back door and I got in. At the first corner we turned right, then right again, then after a few blocks right again, into Small Town's most beautiful park.

And then he parked at a picnic table and pulled the cooler out of the back. In it was a red-checked tablecloth, plates, silverware, bottled water,  and a full fried-chicken meal from the local grocery store.

"It was such a gorgeous day, we just had to be out in it, and I know this is your favorite," he told me. We sat there and ate the carbs-be-damned delicacies, in the most perfect weather, with the company we most prefer in the world. He knew, and remembered, that I hate plastic cutlery. He knew, and remembered, that I love the crispy fried chicken. He knew, and remembered, that I can't abide bugs so this is the best time of the year for me to enjoy a picnic.

And while I do love the big gesture, it's this--the remembering, the attention to detail, the thinking of me first, that made me fall in love with the accountant.

Yesterday this guy turned 64. The first line of the Beatles song was a little on-the-nose prophetic ("When I am older, losing my hair....) but the final verse rings especially true.

I could be handy, mending a fuse

When your lights have gone

You can knit a sweater by the fireside

Sunday mornings go for a ride.

Doing the garden, digging the weeds, 

Who could ask for more?

Will you still need me, will you still feed me,

When I'm sixty-four?

I do, I will.

Who could ask for more?