Nesting Instincts and Echoes

There are plenty of times I look back on my childhood and adolescence and think, “What the hell was my mother thinking?!

Circumstances this week bring to mind the time my mother said, “Sure you can paint the dresser.”

In my bedroom. With red paint.

Spray paint.

While the incident probably accounts for more than a few of my lost brain cells, it undoubtedly also informed a life of decorating risks and rewards.

It started with a small three-drawer chest, black, with simple line carvings highlighted in gold paint, and gold circle pulls…maybe 3” in diameter, two per drawer. I don’t recall if much prep went into the dresser beyond removing the pulls and a light sanding. I do know that I was scrupulous, in the way a 16-year-old girl with zero tolerance for delayed gratification can be, in prepping the painting theatre. Forty-five years ago there wasn’t a Home Depot stocked with blue painter’s tape and plastic drop cloths, there was only old sheets and newspapers. And a little collateral damage on a garment bag.

It’s the garment bag that’s indelibly etched on my mind, much as the red paint was indelibly etched on it. Extra long to encase a prom gown, it dragged on the floor a bit as it hung from the closet rod. It fell victim to the fine mist of over-spray that swirled and eddied under the closet door, depositing cherry red sprinkles on the floor and the garment bag that lay upon it. 

Probably my mom got upset about the floor. But, come on, it was in the closet. And, hello?! Who lets their kid spray paint a piece of furniture in the house already?

there’s no photographic evidence of the original, but here’s evidence that I learned from experience, when I recently painted my older daughter’s hope chest, in her living room, with pretty substantial prep of the area.

And a brush.

I think of this now, because the End Times are coming, presaged by the Pinterest and Instagram pix my engaged daughter is sending me of mismatched chairs spray painted various shades of green.

The End Times are coming, because my daughter, her son and her fiancé signed a lease on an apartment. She is in full Nesting Mode. 

Over the past five years, as anyone who will stand still long enough to let me tell them…and let’s be real, provide copious photographic evidence…I’ve been blessed to attend the birth of my grandson, to witness an incredible bonding of mother and son, to watch a beautiful baby boy grow into a funny, sweet, uh…let’s say persistent, rough and tumble, compassionate human being. My husband and I have been privileged to watch our daughter blossom in motherhood and we’ve been so honored to be integral parts of our grandson’s formative years.

Parents and adult children living together can be a challenge, but I like to think we’ve all risen to it. Probably we could have done better, but I think we’ve done pretty okay. If anyone asks, I would say communication is, as in most areas of life, the key to any sort of success.

I will miss the easy camaraderie and the comfort of the rhythm of our days. I will miss having her as back up if I hear a noise in the night when we’re home alone. I will miss her alternately being my enforcer (really hiding the Oreos) and being my enabler (hiding them in plain sight). I will miss her support and encouragement in all things and her ability to know just the wine I want when I want it. I will miss her proofreading my essays, because I know they’re good if they make her cry.

I’m not crying, you’re crying.

I will not tell you all of the things I won’t miss, because that would ruin the flow of my story.

As for my Jack…I will miss everything. Everything. From spontaneous “I love you, Groms” to 5:45 am calls of “Is it time to get up?” I will miss him sauntering through our bedroom at 6:30 in the morning on his way to use our potty – when there’s a bathroom right next to his room. I will miss his love of cuddling and the way he has to divide up his time between his people as we watch Fixer Upper before bed. The way he’ll ask me to read Sandra Boynton’s Perfect Piggies, “…but don’t sing it, Grom.” And in the next breath will ask me to sing the Armor Hot Dog Song.
Everything, 24/7.

My first picture with Jack

If you ever have opportunity to live with your grandchildren, take it. There is something incredibly special about the bond, the depth of love combined with the lack of responsibility that is precious and priceless. Although to be sure, I have both worried over him more and taken much better care of him than my own children. When caring for mine, I had to answer to me. When caring for Jack, I have to answer to Momma Bear.

Jack enjoys his first Celtics game with Papa.

I think a measure of our success as a multi-generational family is that I don’t want them to go. 

But I don’t want them to stay, either.

I mean, I do. But I don’t. A twisted microcosm of the roots/wings phenomena. 

It’s a time for letting go I have somehow not prepared myself for. As I pondered this late last night, in the recesses of my mind I could hear the faint echo of my mother telling me to “Let go and let God.”

I think, I hope, I know that my daughter knows how much I love her. And her little boy, too. I think she knows because when each of my grandchildren has been born, I have thought, “There! Now, finally, that new parent knows how I feel about them.” And in grand-parenthood, the depths of love in the relationships I was so fortunate to have with my grandmothers becomes clear.

My daughter knows she’s taking huge pieces of my heart with her, as she moves literally, just blocks away.

But I’m still not letting her spray paint any chairs in this house.

new roots, new wings

Roots, Wings and Transatlantic Flights

Hi. My name is Jeri and I’m a mother. 

Forty years ago, after I tried it ‘just once’, I was hooked. I spent the next ten years turning them out like a PEZ dispenser. 

The thing is, I’m not a kid person. Kids don’t gravitate to me. I’m not fun or whimsical. Other people need to see the baby, need to hold the baby. Not me, I’m kind of take it or leave it. Well, unless it’s mine. Before I had kids, I had amorphous dreams of something like…I don’t know, being Carrie Bradshaw before there was a Carrie Bradshaw.

My mother instilled in me a belief that I could do and be anything I wanted. She was a trail blazer of a single mom back in the day, and she did whatever she had to do to raise my sister and me. I think it was hard for her when, in one of those instances of missing what you didn’t have, my sister and I became stay-at-home moms. I don’t think it was so much the home baked cookies we missed, but a kind of stability that was often lacking in our young lives.

In any case, when the kids started multiplying, and my husband’s career - which unlike mine was both well-defined and fueled by some serious drive (and relocation packages) – stay-at-home motherhood was a good fit. Early on, I labored under the delusion that it would be easy – how hard could it be with two loving parents and all we needed?

I’ve picked up on a couple of things since then. The truth is, they will fill your heart, and they will break your heart, sometimes simultaneously. The truth is, you will do anything for them…donate blood and body parts (I’m assuming on the body parts), clean up crime scenes, fight someone for the last Cabbage Patch Doll, move mountains of debt…to give them what you think they need. You will learn that you are only as happy as your unhappiest child and that Sr Mary Eleanor was right, the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

When you build up a tolerance for your kids, they hit you with grandchildren and trust me, there is not a sweeter high than when one of those little beings, brimming with unconditional love, hits you with an unsolicited, “I love you Grom.”

This really is apropos of nothing, just my existential crisis du jour - brought on by currents of life mixing with waves of sweet nostalgia induced by the approaching holidays.

For decades our family ritual has been to go to Mass on Christmas Eve, followed by Chinese food for dinner. Christmas Day is spent at home, French toast for breakfast and something easy for dinner. This tradition began after our first Christmas in Texas. That Christmas, in the Dark Ages before Amazon Prime, I bought all the gifts, wrapped, packed and shipped them back to my in-laws in New York, so that Santa would be able to find the kids where they woke up on Christmas morning. My husband and I, three kids (1986), and the dog followed the packages days later. The process was reversed to get it all home. And lets not leave out the part where the dog left a package…in my in-laws bedroom. That was the last time he was invited.

The next Christmas we wised up and began Christmasing in place, inaugurating the Christmas Eve Mass and Chinese food ritual that we’ve pretty much followed, with additions and minor deviations, since.

Last night my husband and I were reminiscing about how our rituals took shape and what an amazing run we’ve had.

I’ve always tried to be sanguine about them coming home for Christmas. I remember how hard it was to divide time between our families when we were first married. I’ve always encouraged our kids to do what works best for them and makes them happy, so they can enjoy the holidays guilt free.

My evil plan worked really well.

They’ve kept coming back much longer than I thought they would. There have been a few years when distance, work conflicts and such have prevented us all from being together and I’ve known we have to be prepared for change as the family expands.

This year, as I look forward to them all being here for Christmas, I’m also looking back at the day my husband announced to his parents, over Sunday dinner, that we would be moving to Texas for a career opportunity. I remember how the color drained from my mother-in-law’s face and the food in my own mouth turned to dust as it dawned on me that my mother-in-law, my children’s devoted Baba, the epitome of a kid person, would be watching her three oldest, and geographically closest, grandchildren move halfway across the country.

Right before we left, she gave us a framed piece of calligraphy that reads, “There are two things you give your children: one is roots - the other is wings.”

I have carried that piece with us over 32 years and four states. It resonates with me now, as it did then, as our long run of family Christmases is inevitably transitioning to something new. Our oldest son and his family will be moving overseas in January, taking advantage of a career opportunity for our fabulous daughter-in-law. Our youngest daughter will be getting married in October, building a new family unit and embracing new traditions.

I am experiencing the Christmas season more deeply this year. Reliving Christmases Past as I make my mother’s Springerle and hang beloved ornaments on Christmas Present, our brand-new faux tree. I am deeply grateful for the Then and determined to enjoy every moment of the Now. Thankful for the wise and cherished words from my mother-in-law that informed our parenting; feeling fortunate that our children grew their roots deep and their wings wide.

And I’m so gonna ask Santa for some transatlantic flights.