I recently wrote an article for Grand Magazine about Foster Grandparenting. You may be able to view it at www.grandmagazine.com. Let me know if this is not the case. And, by the way, I write under a different name for the magazine, but just look for the article on foster grandparenting. To view a .pdf version, click: Download Grand Magazine article. You won't be able to click on the links provided in the article, but at least you can read the article itself.
Currently, my husband and I are not legally foster parents to Liam, but we are raising him - at least temporarily. At 49 years of age, and looking back twenty-something years when our family was new and our whole lives were ahead of us, I never suspected, in my wildest dreams, that I would be raising a 14-month-old at this point in my life. I have had to re-learn some things pertaining to small humans, but most have come naturally - just like riding a bike. At my age, however, I have found that I am not as quick to remember what I did way back when and I am certainly not as quick to come out of a stupor when awakened in the wee morning hours to perform a diaper change or to prepare a bottle.
Because of this, I am extremely grateful that we have a baby gate at the top of the stairs, which really shouldn't be necessary at night because Liam is safe in his crib (at least until he grows a bit more and decides to crawl out of it). But I keep the gate closed because, as I feel my way in the dark, trying to remember who I am, where I am, how I got there and what century it is, I stop at the top of the stairs, gripping onto that baby gate, and remind myself of the present. "Ah, yes. It's all coming back to me," I think, shaking the last bit of fairy dust from my dream banks. "The little dictator in the other room is not some foreign enemy trying to inflict torture on me if I don't reveal where I'm hiding Peter Pan and his love interest. It's my grandchild. The one I love. The one I am taking care of. The one who tests me daily (and nightly)." I can then, with confidence, open the gate and gingerly make my way down the stairs to the kitchen.
The other night (or should I say morning), I was awakened by some jovial chatter in a language I didn't understand. Once again, because at my age, quick awakenings don't come easily, I opened my eyes, stared at the ceiling and, for some reason which could very possibly be related to latent desires to go back to my prepubescent years, I thought I was 12 years old again. I sincerely believed that I was underwater with my sister, who was talking to me, like she used to do when we'd go underwater in our pool and she would demonstrate how she could carry on a conversation beneath the surface by blowing air out of her mouth. As I blinked and continued to hear the fluid indecipherable banter, I marveled at how I could actually breathe underwater. My proud and excited reverie was interrupted seconds later, however, when a loud warning sounded and I remembered where I was. Liam was trumpeting a clear statement that if I didn't act immediately, there would be some hell to pay.
As usual, I staggered down to the kitchen, prepared the bottle, changed his diaper, covered him and patted his little head. But this particular morning at 4 am, he wanted to "rise and shine." As I lay in the bed across the room and Poppy snored peacefully downstairs in the bed we once shared but which now has become some kind of bachelor catchall where I have found peanut shells, crumbs, popsicle sticks and an occasional neighborhood dog scrounging for scraps, I begged, "Please Liam. It's 4 o'clock in the morning, for crying out loud. Night-night time." I opened one eye when I heard him standing up in his crib. He flung the empty bottle onto the floor and said, "Meh?" which, if you don't know baby language, means, "More?" [And before I go any further, don't even start on me with your expertise on telling me all the reasons why I shouldn't give him a bottle in bed. For Heaven's sake, I'm in the same room, listening while he sucks it dry, and then I get up and retrieve it when he goes back to la-la land.]
My lamentations continued, "Liam, PLEASE. Honestly, what part of night-night don't you understand? Is it the 'n' or is it the silent 'g'?" Finally, with a sigh, I rose, grabbed the bottle, and found my way more easily down to the kitchen this time, put more milk in the bottle and warmed it. After shutting off the light over the sink, I decided that drastic measures were called for - I got down on my knees in the middle of the kitchen and started to pray. "Lord, look. I know you have way many more things on your plate to deal with that are just so much more relevant than this. But I have to work in the morning and I just can't freaking deal with this crap right now. If you could find a little mercy or just a little extra scrap on your table to throw me the smallest of bones here, would you? I mean, I'm trying. I'm trying real hard to be worthy of a bone from your table, but sometimes..." With that, I heard a bellow from upstairs, stood up, stepped on the edge of my bathrobe, tripped and slammed my head against the wall. Surprisingly, I never dropped the bottle and I remained fully conscious.
Climbing the stairs, rubbing my forehead and trying not to say bad things, I walked into the room and the little darling had gone back to sleep. "Thank you, Jesus," I sighed. "I mean it. And I'm sorry for saying 'freaking' and 'crap' in that last prayer. I don't know. I'm just tired. Please forgive. I mean, maybe freaking and crap is ok to say. I don't know. I've tried to figure that one out. Aren't they just some sort of adjective and noun anyway?"
I crawled back into bed and laid there for a good 40 minutes trying to get back to sleep amidst pulsating throbs of my pounding head, worrying about freaking and crap and how their usage might effect my eternity, and thoughts of breathing underwater.
Copyright 2009 liamsgrandma
