Doctor Grandma

Zakiah is sleeping in his own bed back home with Mommy and Baba tonight. Grandma is staying overnight, then will be on her way to Indiana. Our 4-hr drive here was a pretty smooth ride, really. I did not even play a movie. Zakiah talked to himself in his carseat the whole trip. He DID ask me repeatedly, “Grandma, I want to go to my mommy’s house…” at least once every 20 mins. I’d say, “that’s where we’re going,” and he would respond, “OH-tay.” We stopped 2-3X, I don’t remember, not too bad.

I was thinking tonight, that in raising my 4 kids, I never, ever got such a break. My mom was an active alcoholic until the week Levin was born, and never did even watch the kids for an evening. She just wasn’t capable. I mean, she raised 4 kids, but she never watched my kids, even though we were in town. Let’s say, she wasn’t comfortable.

Anyway. I was never separated from my kids, ever. I took the girls to the World Congress and left the boys at home with Al. They were ages 10 & 7 at the time. At least one of them still resents that. I also went back to work when Levin was a year old. But we were always together at night.

I was also thinking that I was fierce in my being a stay-at-home mom for 11 years. It was the poorest financial time we ever had. And I did not go back to work. There is no way someone else was going to watch MY kids when they were so little. We also kept having them……. and it is hard to find a babysitter, let alone for an overnight, for 4 kids. We also could never afford a vacation, ever. So, I have many full memories of wracking my brain trying to think of free things to do. Library trips were a regular. They also check out puzzles and cassette tape books (I’m sure now they are CDs). Once in awhile we actually rode the bus just for something to do. most of the time, we’d walk to the drugstore and get something cheap, or walk to the donut shop. I can remember so many, many times, letting each of the boys pick out some toy at the Mall, as long as it was $2.00 or less. What the hell can you get for 2.00 or less? They always got some hot wheels car or an action figure on sale. Not having money, though, is very stressful and tiring, especially when you are raising kids. But that’s always when you don’t have any money. And now I see my kids going thru it.

I hope I have a safe trip tomorrow.

This entry was posted on July 29, 2009 at 11:28 pm and is filed under grandchildren, various personal musings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.