"An hour with your grandchildren can make you feel young again. Anything longer than that and you start to age quickly."

~Gene Peret

                                                        

Finally I relax by mumbling to myself…”Can we all just calm down?  No worries!”   My wonderful neighbors probably didn’t even see what just happened.  And if they did, so what?  They all have full lives – they’ll have something else to talk about tomorrow and forget all about this.  I am so lucky to live in a neighborhood where we all get along and respect each other AND each other’s privacy. 

In a different neighborhood – with different people - months from now, they would be standing outside talking with friends or other neighbors and politely wave to me; then when I am out of earshot, would say:  “she’s the one I was telling you about – the one with the red vibrator!”  Without turning around or missing a step, I’d mumble to myself (well, maybe not entirely to “myself”) “yeah…what color is yours?” 

 

Okay…I’m going through a divorce and closing in on the age of 50…and I have a red vibrator…so what?    “Sex” doesn’t get much “safer” than that, does it?

Okay…I’m calm now…for the moment.  (Of course, I was calm about 10 minutes ago before this happened and that didn’t last!)  I stop and look at Marcus who is once again mesmerized by Jimmy Neutron. I realize that I can’t really be mad at him…the “toy” looks like a shiny red missile and it does have blinking lights like something out of a Toy Story movie.  And although I constantly tell him to stay out of drawers – especially those in Gramma’s room – I did leave him alone in the house for a whole 5 minutes!  So, this travesty of justice is all my own fault…I can blame no one else (even though I want to so badly!). 

 

Besides…if I did get upset and scold him, he’d just look up at me with those beautiful brown eyes and say “I love you, Gramma”…then what am I supposed to do?  Or better still, he’ll conjure up some big old crocodile tears and when I ignore him, he’ll say “Gramma…I’m crying!” like he always does…as if I can’t see that! 

Anyway…grandmothers aren’t supposed to dole out punishment…we’re supposed to dole out candy when their parents aren’t looking!