Kennedy's First Easter

We just got back from nearly a week in Charleston over Easter. What a difference there is between eight and nine months! Kennedy is interacting and laughing and as busy as a little bee!

She loves to make noise: whether she's crinkling up plastic or paper, ripping pages out of magazines, scratching her nails across fabric or banging two items together (metal, wood, plastic - doesn't matter.)

And she's never still for more than a few minutes. She has a funny crawl, where she bends one leg up so she's kind of on her knee on one side and her foot on the other. We call it her crab crawl. Crazy, but she can move across the floor really fast doing it!

And there is nothing better than having her crawl up to you and sit with her arms up for you to lift her!
My heart melts every time!

Falling in love with our Granddaughter

In Kennedy’s first 5 weeks of life John and I made three trips to Charleston.

After she was born on Saturday June 20^th, I stayed until the following Friday. John went home to work three days and returned on Thursday night.

It was quite a week!

I had forgotten how much work one tiny human was! I have a picture of Brittany in the wheelchair holding the baby carrier as we were leaving the hospital and she looked slightly terrified!

But Kennedy was sleeping a lot and not eating all that much, so we thought, “What an easy and sweet baby!”

Until her first doctor appointment on Wednesday when the doctor said, “She’s orange!” and tested her for jaundice. Sure enough, and not only did she have it, her numbers were high and we had to race to the ER at the downtown Children’s hospital.

That was why she had been sleeping so much and not eating! We all felt SO guilty for not knowing! I held her during the ER check in and the kind lady who was helping us asked if I minded continuing to hold her while they took her temperature (rectally). I wasn’t sure why she even asked, until I felt something warm gush down my leg!

It really lightened the mood and Brittany and Dan even laughed!! I was just glad I had on shorts (which it missed) and flip flops (which they let me wash off in the sink.)

The staff could not have been nicer. They set Brittany up with bottles and a pump, got Dan bedding since he was spending the night and calmed our fears that this happened all the time and she couldn’t be in better hands.

Still…..our baby was wearing black goggles and lying under a blue light. And she had to spend two nights there!

But it worked out and she came home late Friday morning so we got to enjoy her a little more before leaving that night. And then we were back a week and two days later.

I tried to help out with some of the overnight care and encouraged Brittany to run errands and for them to go out to dinner while we played with Kennedy. Often though the four of us were just clustered in a circle looking at her!

One time she cried and we just passed her around, each hoping they would be the one who could calm her down!

I don’t know where the time goes when we’re there. It seems like we are always feeding her, rocking her and then settling her down to sleep again.

But she’s adorable and we are all crazy about her!

So John and I will continue to wear out the road between here and Charleston!

Names, Names, Names

Almost the first question people ask when they find out Brittany and Dan are expecting (besides “when are they due?”) is, “Have they picked out names yet?”

And they’ve worked hard at it! Nearly everyday Brittany would call me to see what I thought about a name. It was surprisingly hard to find a middle name that sounded good with the first names she was coming up with. It was also hard because they had to come up with names for both sexes even though they’d only be using one.

Then invariably Dan wouldn’t like the name or one of her friends wouldn’t so eventually she decided she and Dan would decide alone and “announce” the name as a “done deal”.

Good idea!

They chose the boy name first and when she called to tell me I held my breath hoping I would like it. I did!

Later when she called me with the decision on the girl’s name she said, “And the monogram for that one is really nice!”

She IS a southern girl after all!

So with that taken care of I could get down to the business of picking my Grandma name!

(There are so many things our parents didn’t have to worry about that we do!)

I asked every woman I knew who had grandchildren what their Grandma name was. Who knew there was such a variety? Lady Bug, Bitsy, Miss Betty, along with the more common ones: Gigi, Cici, Nana. Nana of course makes the most sense given that my name is Nancy, but a LOT of grandmas are called Nana. I thought the whole reason you pick Grandma names was to show your relationship was special! Different!

I even Googled “modern grandma names” “foreign grandma names”  “trendy grandma names”. Nothing hit me!

Someone suggested to wait and see what the baby calls me, but does that mean its parents won’t refer to me for the first year of its life? Or say, “Baby, look at that lady over there!”

Another friend who will soon be a grandma says she wants to be called “Favorite” which would leave “Other” for the …other…grandma. While I thought that was a fun idea I’m not sure I could do that!

For now I’m trying out Nana.

But we have a few months left before KENNEDY RAE arrives so if you have a great idea for a name for me let me know!

Are You in There?

We were at Brittany’s for a weekend at the end of March and then left a day later for a week in Mexico so we didn’t see her for Easter this year. This was a first so we tried to participate in each other’s holiday with pictures, lots of phone calls and emails.

Brittany is on the social committee of her home owner’s association and told us she would be the Easter Bunny for the neighborhood egg hunt that Saturday. (She never could keep her mouth closed during moments of silence.) I called her after it was over and asked how it went.

“The costume was too tall for me so I couldn’t see out the eyes. The face was plastic inside and stuck to me. When I pulled the head on it pushed my hair over my eyes and kept getting into my mouth. I couldn’t hear what anyone said to me and they couldn’t hear me either. Because I couldn’t see I had to be led around. And it was HOT!”

Hmmm. I always thought Easter bunnies seemed so happy and carefree.

When she sent the picture at least the costume had a smile on its face and didn’t look sweaty. But then I had a flash back to last Easter when Brittany came to Hickory for the weekend and brought her little month old puppy Ava. At that time Ava only weighed about 6 pounds. She was a little bundle of cuteness; all new and shiny.

Ava's a lab and when I saw her the next time over Labor Day weekend she was full grown. I kept looking in her eyes thinking, “Ava, are you in there?”

I looked at the bunny picture Brittany sent: an adult size rabbit holding a little neighborhood child and I wondered where the tiny blonde looking for eggs in our yard and having HER picture taken with a bunny had gone?

Then I come to as the phone rings and it’s Brittany who seems to already be in the middle of a conversation when she begins to talk. She’s sort of asking for my advice about something, but mostly she wants reassurance that she handled it the right way. So she came to mom.

Yes she's still in there. I can see her. 

Grand Pups?

I’m “electronically babysitting” Brittany’s two dogs while she’s on a cruise this week. She has them in Doggie Daycare in Charleston, but sent me a link so I could watch a webcam in their outdoor play area. Kind of like my mom flying in to watch Brittany for us when John and I traveled. But more modern.

It’s taking quite a bit of my time. I have the website minimized on my computer, but pull it up every so often to make sure they are ok. If I don’t see both dogs, I’ll watch until I do. Charlie, the Springer, is the smallest dog on the playground, which worries me. Many times this week my hand has reached for the phone when a bigger dog got a little rough with him. I wanted to call and have whoever was in charge come out and rescue him. But the scuffle never lasted more then a minute.

Then I have to find Ava, the black lab. This takes awhile because there are lots of large black dogs. I don’t understand why Ava and Charlie aren’t hanging around together.

I don’t understand why I’m suddenly so concerned about them.

I think it started when I read the book “A Dog’s Purpose” right before we went to Charleston to spend Christmas with Brittany. And the dogs. The book pretty much changed my life. The author made the dogs so appealing! I began to see why dogs do what they do and the unconditional love they have for their owners. And for people who give them treats!

John and I brought several bags of dog treats for our Christmas visit. I had SO MUCH FUN telling them to sit and shake and then giving them a treat, saying “You are a GOOD dog!” I did it over and over the whole time we were there.

They loved me!

On Christmas Day we took Charlie in his little Christmas t-shirt to the beach. Ava has hip dysplasia and doesn’t do well at the beach so Brittany whispered to her that we were taking Charlie to the vet. I’m not sure what Ava thought when we came back and Brittany had to give Charlie a bath to get all the sand off. She stood right next to Brittany by the tub watching the whole event.

I tried to make it up to her by sneaking a little… ok a lot, of turkey during dinner that night.

In the few days we were there this time I found I kind of enjoyed getting knocked down with kisses whenever I came in the door. Or the guest bedroom door flying open and having two very eager dogs fly through the air landing on top of me in bed. One thing I didn’t like was that Brittany kept referring to me as Grandma. The other was Brittany calling me two days after we got home and saying (accusingly) “I took Ava to the vet today and she gained two pounds!”

What? That’s my fault? Who goes to the doctor to get weighed right after Christmas anyway?

Reach Out and Touch

A lot of people are a little leery of Craigslist. Not Brittany. She’s not only found jobs through Craigslist, she’s bought and sold things and even found friends.

Recently she called me and said she happened to see a posting from a 25 year old girl who had just moved to Charleston and was looking for friends. So Brittany emailed her, inviting she and her husband (and dog) over to a BBQ she was hosting that weekend.

When I expressed a bit of concern about inviting someone from Craigslist, Brittany said, “I looked her up on Facebook first. She looked nice.”

Oh. Ok. So long as she looked nice and was on Facebook.

There are so many strange things about the way we keep in touch with others nowadays. We’re not as bad as the Christmas card floating around the internet of the family of four who instead of looking into the camera have their noses buried in their cell phones, but it always makes me laugh when John comes home from a business trip and Brittany texts him, “I’m SO glad you are home!”

She lives 4 hours away and hasn’t seen him in a month and won’t for another month. What difference does it make to her if he’s in California or North Carolina?

He is a little bit harder to get a hold of when there’s a time change involved I guess. Maybe his trips mess up the ongoing scrabble game they play on their phones. Sometimes I’ll hear his phone beep and he’ll say, “Guess it’s my turn again!”

They do better texting and gaming then long phone conversations. She called one night when I wasn’t home and told John all about her evening adventure. When she called me the next day she retold it all because she said, “It’s not as good telling Dad because he’s always doing something else while I’m talking. You do too, but you’re better at multitasking.”

So I tell her that he was listening because he told me about it, but go ahead and tell me anyway incase he missed something.

Then I go find John and remind him that we are lucky to have a grown daughter that still wants to talk to us! And I’ll take that in whatever form it comes!

The Whirlwind

Brittany came home for a weekend recently. I think! It all happened so fast!

One of her sorority sisters was getting married here and it happened to be the same weekend as our neighborhood yard sale. I’ve only had one yard sale in my life, so I suggested she and I participate in it Saturday morning. (Thinking of the boxes and boxes of stuff she has stored at my house.) She agreed. (Thinking of all the money she needed.)

I didn’t think about the fact that John would be returning Friday night after a week in Germany. And I didn’t think about her inviting all of her sorority sisters over Saturday afternoon for pictures before the wedding. And I certainly didn’t think we’d be selling her old car and buying a new one that day too!

It took me 3 days to set up for the sale. By Saturday morning I was wishing I had never had the idea. The sale was scheduled to start at 7:30. The exact time Brittany had a car appointment to have her brakes looked at. John drove over with her so she could leave the car. Around 8:15 she returned, and not long after that the car place called and said in the near future she’d have to replace a few very expensive things. About that time a friend of hers from Charlotte arrived and talk turned to “wouldn’t it be nice to have a new car under warranty.”

The next thing I knew they were down on the computer with John. I meanwhile continued the yard sale. At 11:00 they were back long enough to tell me they were running to Car Max “just to see” how much they’d give her for her old car.

At noon, John came up and said he was meeting them at Kia “just to look” at what a new car would run. No problem, I’ll finish and clean up from the yard sale. At 3:30, after I had everything that was left put away and swept up, the first of her sorority sisters began to arrive. One by one they rang the doorbell, already knowing her whole story because she had talked to each on the phone from the dealership. At one time or another each of the girls had roomed with Brittany, so nothing surprised or bothered them.

15 minutes before they needed to leave for the wedding; Brittany, Charles and John arrived and one of them was driving an unfamiliar, but very cute, red car named Mia.

Somehow in 15 minutes, the girls swarming around her, she was dressed and made up, we took pictures and they were gone – leaving John and I standing in the kitchen looking at each other, saying, “What just happened?”