Life's little changes

I've discovered a few things over the past few days: 1) employment is a major drag, 2) the internet is as much a boon as a bust, and 3) no matter how old they are, little girls still need their Mommas.

My daughter and son-in-law brought their sons home from the hospital yesterday. I can only imagine what it is like to bring home two babies. I remember the uncertainty I felt when I brought our first son home. Thankfully my mother was there to help. She stayed a week, went home for a few days and came back for another three days. I think Dad thought she was running away from home.

Those first few days/weeks home I spent an inordinate amount of time with my nose buried in Dr. Spock's book. (For the current generation, that's Dr. Spock the pediatrician, not Mr. Spock, the pointy-eared, logical, first officer/science officer on the starship Enterprise).

I believe I read the book religiously for a few weeks and then it was relegated to evening out the coffee table in the living room of our apartment in student housing.

Today, Dr. Spock has been replaced by the internet -- and the electronic advice comes complete with dire warnings of doom and hopeless failure. If the babies are too hot they may die of SIDS. If the babies are to cold their little fingers and toes may fall off (okay, I made that one up).Immunize. Don't immunize. Put alcohol on the umbilical cord stump.Don't put alcohol on the umbilical cord stump. Dress them. Don't dress them. Put them on a schedule. Don't put them on a schedule. (By the way someone entrepreneurial genius is making a killing with the creation of swaddling jackets. They kind of look like straight jackets and are the best thing out since sliced bread, according to the young mothers offering advice to my daughter during a baby shower earlier this summer. I used receiving blankets. They worked great).

So my daughter and her husband are home with two darling little boys. The uncertainty is slowly settling in and exhaustion has found a new home. There is something to be said for childbirth and hospitals in the "olden days" when babies would spend their first few days in the mother's hospital room and then be rolled to a nursery at night. Those two extra night's sleep before the reality of bringing baby home was wonderful.

I spoke with my daughter last night. She explained to me they were working on arrangements for the babies, because -- as they have discovered -- getting up in the middle of the night, walking down the hall and feeding in the nursery is not always practical. Especially for the sleep deprived.

I remember those days. When our first son would cry during the night, I would get up. Change him. Bring him into our room where there was a rocking chair. Feed him. Rock him. Change hium again (I know, right?). And put him back to bed. King would roll over in bed and stretch out, a smile on his sleeping face. I learned to wipe that smile off easily by kicking the bed. But it did get easier. By the time our fourth child was born, I would roll the bassinet closer to the bed, tip it on its side, roll the baby out, feed him. Roll him back into the bassinet, push the bassinet back into its place and go back to sleep. These are things parents have to figure out for themselves.

In the meantime I want to go see those babies. And I promise I won't offer advice or tell them "You should do it this way . . ."

All summer long we had plans for flying out to California to help with the babies. Our son-in-law has four weeks paternity leave and the plan was when he went back to work King and I would come and help out. We talked about King flying back to Michigan without me and I would stay an extra week. A great plan. A sound plan. But things don't always work out they way we want.

The elusive job I've been looking for the past year has manifested. I should be grateful. I should be elated. I should be relieved. I'm not. Having a job is just plain inconvenient. And please, at my age this is no career. It's a job and a paycheck.

In the meantime I will say to my daughter, "Hang in there honey, Mr. Spock is coming."

Just one more time around the lake, please Dad?

Today is Labor Day.

This year I am in California with my daughter. It is blazing hot and she has no air in her new home. I have suggested we pack a picnic lunch and simply drive around the city. She didn't go for it.

At home King and our grand daughter are getting ready for the start of the school year. They have purchased volleyball equipment as she has made the cut for the eighth grade volleyball team, and my sister has taken her school clothes shopping. I can't believe we have an eighth grader in our house again. I have listened as she excitedly told me all the outfits she has for the start of the year. Today King says he will cut wood and they may possibly go to the beach. It sounds like a typical Labor Day at home. Quiet and peaceful.

In the years before our (semi) empty nest, our daughter, youngest son and I would go camping with the horses at Yankee Springs Recreation area. Three full days of riding the trails with members of the local 4H club. Fond memories.

When I was growing up, Labor Day weekends meant we would be going to the cottage belonging to family friends from Chicago. It was a summer retreat at a small inland lake near Gobles, Mich. The weekend was spent getting things ready for winter. While there were still  plans for weekend gatherings and Halloween parties at the cottage, Labor Day was the time the dock would come in, the boats would be pulled out of the water, water toys put away and lawn furniture tucked in for the winter.

It also meant gas tanks had to be run dry.

I'm not certain how other families did it, but the weekends leading up to Labor Day we would slow down on our gas purchases for the boats (it was something like 34 cents a gallon then). On Labor Day the pontoon motor would be run until it sputtered and died. The same was done for the outboard motor on the small row boat. But the speed boat . . . that was a different story.

Dad, his Chicago friend and a third friend from Chicago had purchased a inboard boat one summer. Tradition called for it to be the last boat to be pulled out of the water on Labor Day. After a majority of the other summer residents had put their boats away for the winter, we would take turns pulling one another around the now empty lake.  Even Dad would don a pair of skis and my sister and I would take turns driving the boat or acting as spotter as he skied around the lake a few times. No other boats, no other skiers. Just us. We would spend the late afternoon skiing, salomon skiing and discing.

For the uninformed, discing is being pulled around the lake at break-neck speeds on a round, flat piece of wood. My sister and I would lay, knee or stand on it while Dad would make quick turns trying to help us over the wake and onto the smooth, flat water. At least that was the intent...Most of the time it worked.

Dad would keep a careful eye on the gas tank.

"Time is up girls. We are almost out."

"Just one more time around, Dad? Please? We can tow the boat in if we run out."

And we generally would run out of gas. My sister and I would unhook the ski rope from the back of the boat, swim around to the front, hook it to the bow and, as promised, pull the boat to shore.

The last time around the lake for the summer and off to school the next day.