To remember, to celebrate

Last week was the birthday week. Judah turned one on Wednesday; his mother turned 34 on Thursday. We also celebrated 32 years in this house on Thursday. Here is the piece I posted on Facebook that day:

Another warm, sunny October Saturday 32 years ago when we dropped Jennifer M. Plantenberg at her Grandma Kissinger’s house to celebrate her second birthday with a rocking chair (which now resides in Leeya’s bedroom) and Bear (who still lives at our house) while we quickly moved all our belongings from the tiny condo to our new house. Although Jen is celebrating 34 years today in her own house, Terry Zody & I celebrate half a lifetime in this house. Grandma Kissinger is cheering us on from heaven.

We went to San Mateo on Friday to celebrate Judah’s big day. Here are a few pictures from the party at Coyote Point Park in San Mateo:

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What’s in your bucket?

I’m having a pretty easy morning today. Except for the cat throwing up on my shoes. That wasn’t planned for. By me, anyway. Who knows with a cat. They seem to figure out some of the best places to throw up. After using my shoes, he next went to the heater vent. Got there soon enough to keep from that happening. Sometimes I can outsmart the cat.

The grandchildren left home so I am alone, with the cats. It’s very quiet and peaceful. Almost like being in my house. Except for the pile of toys I’m sitting next to on the couch. And the pile of dirty dishes in the sink. The only dishwasher in this place is of the human kind. Being the only human in the house right now, that task should fall to me. I’m ignoring it.

Tiny granddaughter is at Vacation Bible School. The one her mother is directing and her grandfather is photographing. I will join them at lunch time. Hot dogs–kid food.

Tiny grandson went to the farmer’s market to buy plums and get vittles for tonight’s picnic supper. There is a concert in Central Park and we plan to be there, with our dinner. He took his father along with some money to buy the food since his sleepers don’t have any pockets, making it hard to carry cash.

Speaking of cash, the kids at Vacation Bible School are collecting money to buy mosquito netting to send to Mali where kids still die from malaria which is caused by mosquito bites. Tiny granddaughter rounded up some coin to contribute. She put it in a green bucket that she also uses for dirt when she digs in the yard. She informed me that she had money in the bucket and a dollar. Looking in, sure enough, there was a pile of coin at the bottom and a dollar bill lying on the top. So, where do you keep your money?

The grandparents

We are not elderly, nor frail. We are in good health. Accomplished. Successful in our careers. Still lots of energy and vitality in us. Until.

 

Until we show up at our daughter’s to babysit the two grandchildren. Ages three years and nine months. By mid afternoon we need naps. At the end of the day, a glass of beer and a quiet dinner. Falling into bed, we are asleep in minutes. When the alarm goes off at 5:30 to start another day, I moan and roll over. Why did I agree to do this for a whole week?  And it’s only Tuesday?

 

Small children need very young, healthy, smart people to care for them. It takes quick wit, quick movements, and never-ending storytelling to keep them moving forward through their day with all the accouterments necessary for living the life of a toddler. Clean clothes, good food, educational activities. And don’t forget potty breaks. Or, in the case of the nine month old, diaper changes.

 

It never stops. Even when they are napping or sleeping, the tasks must be accomplished if the next day is to be successful. I am glad we are the grandparents. We could never make it as the parents.

This week’s project

A few months ago, while attending the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce monthly networking breakfast, I met a woman from Ronald McDonald House who was looking for volunteers to work with siblings of the hospitalized children who have to stay long term at our regional children’s hospital. Although not a task I was interested in, I knew of just the right person who would be interested.

A friend of mine, Gladys, with whom I worked for 21 years at the large inner city high school, had a granddaughter born with a congenital problem and had to remain hospitalized, in San Francisco, for nearly a month after her birth. The parents, and their other two children, were able to stay at the Ronald McDonald House there. Gladys wanted very much to return the favor, and she would be perfect for helping the siblings.

After much delay due to appointments and trips, we finally arranged a meeting on Monday with the volunteer coordinator. I went along to make the introductions, and to see the house for myself and what they offered. Gladys’s daughter-in-law wanted to help, too.

I did not realize that all cleaning and food services must be donated to the Ronald McDonald Houses as there is only a small administrative staff on site at each house. Seeing the kitchens in which parents could fix meals between visits to the hospitals, I realized this WAS an area in which I could help. The volunteer coordinator, Janie, said that hand-held, easy to eat foods were good for the families so they could take the food with them to the hospital. My Zody Red Wagon Pies would fit the bill.

Gladys and Corinna were planning to return on Friday to help with the siblings so I spent the rest of the week buying ingredients and preparing five dozen pies for them to deliver on their return trip.

I made apple, blueberry, blackberry, and peach: 

Some of the blackberry pies fell apart when I took them out of the pans so I sent them along to Gladys for her to enjoy:

The rejects

Upon my retirement, the girls in the business department gifted me with a cart which I used a lot in San Francisco. Since returning to Fresno, it has resided in the hall closet. It came in handy to transport the pies:

Pie delivery

Next time the girls go out to Ronald McDonald House, I plan to send berrocks. I’m glad they go on Fridays so I’ll have a whole week to work on the project.

Here’s to good health & independence

Sometime in my 30s I got pneumonia. It started, probably, with a cold that just wouldn’t go away. Nor would I give it a chance to go away because I had to keep going and going. Just like that energizer bunny. I had a small child, a job, a house, and a myriad of tasks to do. Oh, and I also taught a Sunday School class and may have been serving on a church board. That part is lost in the recesses of my aging brain. All I knew, there was no time to be sick.

But I got sick. By the time I went to the doctor, it was bad enough that he threatened to hospitalize me. Now, that would never work. I was a wife, a mother, an employee, a volunteer. Life was too busy for a hospital room to be thrown into the mix.

“Then you must go home, get in bed, and stay there all week. Get up only to use the bathroom,” was his reply to my wail of anguish, “and if you are not better in a couple of days, you will go to the hospital. Pneumonia can kill you.”

Oh.

I guess dying would not be a good thing.

I went home, went to bed, and stayed there. And got well.

Life continued. The child was fed and bathed. The house did not fall down. Someone filled in for me at work. But, the Sunday School class? No one took care of that. I don’t remember what the boys who I taught did during the time period I was away. No one from church called to say they missed me. I felt a bit betrayed by the people who should be caring about what happened to me.

That incident taught me that I should never count on people to take care of important matters. That it was important for me to stay healthy and keep doing the tasks that did matter to me. Unable to count on others makes one very independent. And well.

Some of my Sunday School history

Going through boxes of pictures, clippings, files, and all sorts of historical pieces for the church history project, I have found a photo of one of my Sunday School classes from years ago. For almost 20 years, I taught second, fourth, fifth, and sixth grade Sunday School classes. Not all at the same time, but different ages, scattered over the years.

One time I quit teaching second grade because two little boys, who were too energetic for my style, were going to be in the class. I could have handled one but not two. I was very young at that time, and now with years of teaching experience, I could easily handle them, but back then they terrified me.

A few years passed and I was asked to take on fourth grade. We had lots of fun putting on plays of Bible stories and doing the big project of the year–building Jerusalem. I would take the kids to the church library to look at books with pictures and maps of Jerusalem during Bible times. We talked about all the things that went into a city–the buildings, the people, the animals, the temple, and the wall. Different students were interested in different things, some wanting to make the people, others wanting to build houses. We would collect cardboard boxes, paper tubes, popsicle sticks, and plastic plants and animals. For a few weeks, each Sunday, the class would work on the various parts of Jerusalem until we thought it was good enough. Then we would invite parents in to see the finished product. Here is one class’s interpretation:

I think I did this for four years. My friends could probably tell me for sure because I always bugged them for boxes and other such supplies. Then I went on to teach fifth and sixth grade, and many of those students had already done the Jerusalem project so I let it lapse. No one else picked up the idea. It was just easier to do the lesson in the book.

A story about a coffee mug (and a lot more)

See the coffee mug on the newspaper?   I used it this morning for my mocha (made with French roast and Silk chocolate soy milk) that I drank while sitting in my backyard, reading the Sunday San Francisco Chronicle.

The mug has a story…it’s 20 years old this summer, brought to me by a lady who was my aide for a summer school class I taught out in the rural town of Parlier the first summer I had my teaching credential.  I had no promise of a real teaching job so I took anything I could get.  This class was in the computer lab at an elementary school in a very poor city with mostly Spanish speaking students.  Although I cannot speak, I can read and understand Spanish at a very basic level.  The aide was there to help me out, and she was wonderful.

I think  I was hired to just oversee the kids doing whatever they liked on the computers, but I wanted a product (project based learning).  The regular teacher had the lab set up for games, but there was a word processing program and a small desktop publishing program on the machines so I had the little kids write their stories (most in Spanish), and the older kids put them into a weekly newsletter for the duration.  It was quite popular, and the superintendent came out one day to see what I was doing. Even 20 years ago I believed that computers are to be used for productivity, not to play games, and that is what we did in that lab.  It did not, however, get me a job offer with the district.  Now, looking back, I can be thankful as it was a 40 minute drive to Parlier and in the winter I would have suffered through fog on country roads.

Back to the mug, the lady who was my aide knew that I loved Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks and that my husband and I often hiked the trails there.  One weekend she took her family, after hearing my stories, and brought the mug back as a souvenir.  I was delighted and have kept it all these years as a reminder of a summer job, long ago, when I taught elementary children to write the stories of their life in their native language .

Celebrities can break your heart

First, a disclaimer: I am not into celebrities.  I don’t watch shows that have celebrities on them, I don’t buy People Magazine, and I really don’t care who is doing what because these are NOT my friends.

With that, I am absolutely shocked and horrified over this Kate & Nate + 8 nonsense that’s been in the news.  Ok, it’s not Nate, but Jon, but that’s how I think of it in my mind.  It rhymes better that way!  I knew nothing about this show until last winter when we vacationed with our kids and they were watching it.  (Another disclaimer:  we don’t have cable TV)  My daughter told me it was one of TLC’s most popular shows, and this morning I read where it is the most watched show on TLC.   I watched some of the shows and thought it was a cute premise.  I cannot imagine raising eight kids, especially when six are the same age.  I could see how others probably were just as enthralled as I was with their escapades.

Now, all this hullabaloo about getting a divorce.  What a terrible thing to do to eight kids who are already living their life in the spotlight.  As I do quite often it seems, I want to scream:

What is wrong with you people?

The marketing guru in me says, though, bad publicity is better than no publicity.  Breaks my heart.