On Becoming A Grandparent

My thoughts have been turning to little Red Boots in recent days as I wonder what it will be like to be a grandparent. I find myself devising little childrens stories, and thinking of other ways to befriend him. I wonder what it is like to be a grandparent. They always say that grandparenting is fun without the responsibility. I remember Jonica's grandmother whipping out foldout baby picture albums to show off her five grandchildren, and I see her smiling blissfully through oversized square frame glasses with rhinestones on the hinges. I do not think this will be me. I have been thinking that I had better work on taking the rut off my alzheimer addled remembrance of all the songs I used to sing while Jonica, Amanda, and Colin played in the bathtub.

I was clueless about parenting before Jonica was born, wondering what it would be like. It turned out that having children was the favorite thing in my life (lucky that Jonica was such a sweety to atart off with). I'm hoping that grandchildren will be as much fun. I suspect that a child inspires me to dream up stories more than teenagers and adults.

Last night at couples counseling Chelsea went on and on about her concerns about the eventual arrival of Red Boots into conscious reality. She seems to think that it will be a bigger event for us than I do. Actually I think Chelsea is looking forward to grandparenting with me. She is hard on the outside and mushy inside.

I read an article about how the doctors at the Houston Children's Hospital have a team to deal with the treatment of the 10 intersex babies born there every year. The article commented on how the gender of these babies is determined by some non-understood mix of genetics, hormonal balances, and unexplained developments in-utero. It made me think of little Red Boots dancing around in there, hopefully with everything going according to schedule in the correctly metered dosages.

Colin will arrive back in New York this coming Thursday. He seems so anxious to get out of Sao Paulo. I never felt this way about leaving Brazil. As I remember, I am always sadly resentful of coming back to the US. But his situation is different from mine, and he is definitely different from me. I do feel sad that he is no longer in Brazil because it was such a joy to visit with him and to be able to share Brazil with him as a person who has experienced a lot of what I have experienced as a sometime expatriate living there. It will be nice to have him back though, and I hope he will let me drive his Mini Cooper sometime. Knowing his attitude toward my driving (after driving for 48 years in 7 different countries, motorcycles to concrete mixers, on and off road, well over 500,000 miles) he will probably limit me to driving around an empty parking lot in first gear. I don't really care though. Driving for me has lost a lot of its joy, and at this point I am happy to sit in the soft leather seat in the back of a Lincoln Town Car or similar listening to music while someone else deals with it all.

I wish I could figure out how to put pictures on my blog. I have a great green frog to use as a kind of logo. I have loved frogs ever since I caught a lot of them to use as bait for bass in Lake Gananauqua, Ontario, in 1954. They are so sleek and green. And now we find that the death of the world's frogs is a measure of the death of organic life on the planet. It makes me feel validated.