April 2019
I’ve been fortunate enough to travel to some really amazing, breathtaking memorable places, but my most recent trip to Savannah has left an indelible mark on my heart and a forever place in my memory.
For the past year, I’ve been wearing a path through the clouds taking advantage of every $69 Jet Blue sale on direct BOS-SAV flights I can find. So heading to the Hostess City of the South wouldn’t normally be anything to blog about. In fact, in all the times I’ve headed down, I’ve only brought my camera once. For this particular trip, I left it at home again. And for good reason. I was a little busy.
Let me back up a bit, about 25 years worth.
My mom was the greatest Nana who ever lived. She loved her grandchildren maybe even more than their own parents loved them. Nanny was forever looking for ways to get rid of mom and dad to have the babies all to herself. In 1995, she passed away on her first grandchild’s 6th birthday, missing the opportunity to watch them all grow into the amazing, successful adults they now are and experience all of the events along the way. Five of her nine grandchildren never had the honor of meeting her. I’d like to think I learned a lot about Nana-ing from her. Or if there’s a Nana gene, I hope I ended up with it.
A year ago, my son (who I dare say was Nanny’s favorite) and his wife were sent to Savannah for the USCG, and in that time, have celebrated a graduation, a promotion, the purchase of their first home, the birth of their twin-fants, and their wedding. This year, they finally had a minute to take some well-deserved time for themselves and booked a weeklong cruise. I was so honored when they asked if I could babysit while they were gone. Imagine being deemed worthy enough to bear the responsibility of caring for someone’s most valued treasures??
Oh Hank. Where is your other shoe?
As luck would have it, I arrived in Savannah just hours before Grandparent’s Day at Molly’s school, and was beaming with pride to be invited to attend. I’m not Molly’s Nana by blood, but I am by pure love. Molly’s heart and soul are as beautiful as her china doll face. I am so blessed to have her in my life.
The school is clever enough to schedule Grandparent’s Day to coincide with the Scholastic Book Fair. We certainly didn’t go home empty handed and the invisible ink spy pen we bought left many undecoded messages tattooed on the twins baby soft skin over the course of the week.
I had the opportunity to see Molly’s classroom, her desk and the playground, and we even got a sneak peek at the spelling words we’d be studying the whole week long.
Once mom and dad left, I dusted off the cobwebs from the How to Take Care of Kids manual in my brain and hit the road running. Henry and Finley didn’t seem to notice that mom and dad hopped in the car with a giant suitcase, but there were definitely some tears shed on Molly’s part. When you’re 8, a week is 1/416th of your life, and that can seem like a pretty long time.
So we did what any sad 8 year old would do. We got out the colored pencils and the construction paper and made a paper chain to count down the days until they came home.
Molly even wrote some special messages for mom on the inside.
We opened our clay bakery during nap time, and created endless confections
Over the course of the week, we navigated the school drop off and pick up line like a boss, while managing to get Molly to school on time every day.
In one week, we got Molly to her gymnastics class,
took Henry and Finley to story time at the town library,
made it to Kindermusic music class,
went cruisin’ with the tops down,
made a visit to the playground-where baby wrangling proved challenging,
and where Molly made a new friend,
celebrated a perfect math score with a Snickerdoodle blizzard from Dairy Queen,
planted Molly’s seedling (with a special warning sign to dad that it was NOT a weed),
and played with Molly’s new tub of chalk.
We played school and even had a spelling bee where Fin showed off her gel pen skills
And Henry showed off his book reading skills
And eventually, too many episodes of Sugar Rush on Hulu inspired us to bake cupcakes we could actually eat.
And they turned out perfect, until they fell frosting side down all over the kitchen floor, but they were saved by the 5 second rule. The crunch of glitter sprinkles can be so forgiving.
I only promised mom and dad that I would keep the kids alive. I made no promises about keeping them out of the Tupperware drawers…
Or the cabinets…
Or the dog food bowls…
which sometimes didn't go well…
But it was those quiet moments of pure baby sweetness and youthful joy that I will forever hold dear in my heart and I will miss and think of every second I am not with them.
When the week finally came to an end, we made sure Mom and Dad could find the house in case they had forgotten where they lived.
One week, a school ager, two toddlers, and a dog and cat later, I was exhausted and had lost 5 pounds. But it was the best exhausted of my life. I love those little people with every fiber of my being, and I miss them every second of every day. They bring joy to every minute-even the kind of minutes where new teeth are trying so hard to poke through and screams of pain are difficult to ease. Sharing their lives, and watching them grow and learn is the greatest joy of my life.
I can only hope I made Nanny proud.
May 2019 UPDATE:
Apparently mom and dad had a great time on vacation.
My babysitting days may be over.