Away at Home



Couldn't Sleep ALL Week. . . .

 


  

She LOVES Having YOUR Name. . . .




 

                It's that 'Family Reunion'-time of year.  We are gathered as is our wont on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.  Folks have traveled from Florida, Massachusetts and Virginia by land, sea and air.  As the three generations interact, I can 't help but long for the days when I was in the 'latest-arrival' category. 

Things were so much more

'secure' feeling when I was the 'kid'.  Now, I'm the 'Grams' or 'Gigi' for the tots who cannot yet 'handle' the hard 'g'.  And the pressure is exhausting.

For example, as I write, the gang is off

well, doing the reuniting with great gusto and good cheer.  I recall that freedom, that joi De vie - because I was standing on the shoes of a sturdy, know-where-they-are-going "big person" leaving me with zero responsibility save  looking cute-ish, giggling, getting away with dripping cherry Popsicle splashes on my white pinafore and staying up LONG after bedtime story time watching the grown-ups fetch one more glass of water, climb bunk ladders or squeeze between walls and bedposts finding the cuddly, stained and ragged 'must have' sleep buddy that I had carefully secreted hours before.





You Know They're Adorable, Mom. . .





 

Beach is BEST!!!



        I love them dearly but I am tired.  You see  the roles changed in a thirty or so year blink and the current 'happiness'  is a tad lopsided - from where I am crouching.          Now, I'm the fetch-er, forcing a smile while arthritic knuckles do the fetching and squeezing - and 'comfortable' is a foggy memory.  After a day on the beach, pointing out porpoises leaping out of the choppy waters to snag lunch from the sky and suffering the sticky/oily/grainy sensations of splayed sand on carefully-sun screened and insect-repellent limbs, I have been memorialized in color by the gadgetry-loaded middle generation's digitalized toys which I thought really were watches or visors.


 

THIS was The Life!

        Surely the week will seem a TREASURE that I want NEVER TO END - next month.  And I shall create memorable collages;  send them off in large numbers to unsuspecting and very busy friends; plan hungrily for the next time we can be together.  Indeed.  And you, dear readers, will have the added fun of visuals ad nauseum upon which to gaze while reading random posts that have NOTHING to do with children.  And you'll wonder.  "These her Grand peeps?  Ya think?"  

Children Swimming?



        I'll most likely be going on about misleading pharmaceutical advertising and the dangers thereof but, and YOU will "get" the inappropriate accompanying visual, the selected photo-of-elaboration will be of happy, frolicking, organically-sated cherubs who in NO way could need or even know of pesky "slings and meshes implanted therapeutically and demonstrating their presence pathologically".  Rather, they will call to mind "Touching Angels".



Later, Lorane. . . .