Concierge

Lately I find myself contemplating my next career move. Where does one go from being on a set for 14 hours a day, fanning down a sweaty, tomato-faced stunt man after he just flew out of a window in full armor? What job will fulfill my need for adventure and my addiction to being around eccentric, dramatic people? 

LO is certainly eccentric (running around the house with her diaper on her head) and she has all my Hollywood peeps beat in the dramatic department. She flings herself on the floor, instant tears spilling down her face, after a raisin falls out of her hand. Everything is so tragic at our household these days. 

Oh no, the episode of Yo Gabba Gabba finished: "WHAAA!" No you can't have another packet of fruit snacks: "WHAAA!!!."  Let's comb your hair: "WHAAA!!!  And yesterday I had the audacity of cheerfully saying "Good morning, my angel face" to which she threw herself in the crib and wailed "WHAAAA!" It's going to be a long day, I thought. 

And it was. 

But nobody is paying me to do this job. In fact, I'M paying a pre-school to get a break for a few hours.

So I need to find something that will have a financial benefit - not a liability - as a financial magazine once harshly but honestly defined children. They are expensive little creatures.  

And then it hit me: I need to be a concierge. Basically, that is my job description now. I meet the requests or more precisely - the demands - of a very discerning and difficult "guest". And I usually deliver on most with poise and grace (ok, that may be a stretch but I get the job done). 

For instance, as I was pulling out of our apartment and onto our street (which happens to be the feeder road of a busy freeway) LO screeches "GASSES, GASSES, peeze." At least I got a please. And no, the request has nothing to do with a bodily function. Luckily we are not at that gross stage yet or maybe we'll miss that altogether because she's girl? Anyhow, she's asking for her sunglasses. On our drive home from the hospital, little newborn LO squinted her eyes annoyingly at the sun in her face. I proudly exclaimed to P that she's just like me! She's definitely mine because she hated the sun in her eyes. Two years later, she's still the same. If the sun hits directly in her eyes, she'll scream in horror "Light, light" and cover her eyes with her hands.  

So as I try to avoid a collision with a zooming car, I reach in the backseat pocket to get her Dora glasses. What's next? A few moments later "Fiwawoak, Fiwawoak." She's asking for her jam of the moment, Katy Perry's "Firework." I put on the CD that P burned with all her favorites. Check. 

"AGUA, AGUA!" echoes from the backseat. "How do you ask?," I retort. "Agua, Agua, PEEZE." I reach into the fully stocked diaper bag beside me and hand her the sippy cup. She takes a swig.

"SNACK, SNACK!" "No snacks until we get to the park," I say. "SNACK, peeze," she beckons. 

"Nice words, LO, but you may not have a snack until the park," I answer.  Silence.  She got it. 

"SNACK, Mama, PEEEZE." Maybe not. When the explanation tactic doesn't work, I move onto the distraction tactic.  I reach in the car toy bag and pull out a book. "Would you like a book?" She gives me an enthusiastic "YEAH."

And we're barely at the first stop light on our journey to the park. It's going to be a long ride. 

Bring it!

Grump

I wrote this a few weeks ago and did not open this blog since. We have been so busy. Visitors were in town for P's birthday and we just returned from celebrating LO's 2nd birthday in our hometown (more to come about that).

I was unsure if I would share this, but as I re-read it now, I think that I will. Because my Grandpa was bold, he inspires me to act a little more boldly too. Please excuse the sloppy writing. I haven't done any editing to this.


I miss you. I didn't even realize how much until tonight. Everything is quiet and as I got ready for bed, your beaming smile flashed into my mind and I can't escape the pain. Nor do I want to. I want to feel it because I want to never forget you. Grandpa or Grump, as I lovingly called you, I sob tonight for the past year we all have lived without you. I understood that it was your time to go. I mourned your death as I celebrated your very well-lived life.  I knew that it would be okay to not see you anymore, because frankly, in the end you weren't the man that I knew. The disease erased you in the present. You were no longer my Grump. At the end you became only the shell of the person you were. It was as if the core of you had left before your body followed suit.

LO will never know you the way I did. And for that reason I sob tonight. I wish she had the same privilege that I had to know you. The experience of eating ice cream out of a tub with you, of eating your bacon waffles (morsels of crunchy bacon mixed in the batter), of playing canasta with you as you hid cards in your suit sleeve or of walking on your back barefoot for the promise of a Dairy Queen Blizzard. You are woven in the fabric of my childhood. You were always there. To pick me up from school so that I wouldn't be humilaited to walk the five blocks home in high school (so silly, I know). To talk to me about the night you met Grandma at that dance club in Manhattan Beach and your friend pursued her first while you smoothly waited to make your move. Or to share the pain you felt when your father disowned you for joining the Army during World War 2. You were a first generation American with parents from Mexico and yet you felt as American as any other citizen. You loved this country. Almost as much as you loved your family. You were a strong man, stubborn until the end. Frank Sinatra's "My Way" describes your point-of-view perfectly. You came from East LA, selling newspapers, you really had no business getting a scholarship to the most prestigious mining engineering school. I love the picture of your college graduation with Grandma and your four young kids (another 3 would follow). You were so handsome - with a touch of over-confidence that I wish I had inherited. 

I love you Grump and I miss you. Still. You would get a kick out of my daughter. She has the same zest for life that runs through my veins and I'm pretty sure comes from you. She's funny, wicked sharp and as you would say "a character." I know you would love her like you loved me, unconditionally. You made me feel special. I just wish you could make her feel that way too. Because it meant very much. 

As I wipe these tears from my face, I am not quite sure why tonight was the night I mourned you again. It's an ordinary night, nothing triggered this downpour of memories and emotions. Maybe you came to visit me tonight. I feel your presence as I write this and somehow I just know that you were never really gone and that you won't ever really leave us. You are here, you live on in your wife - my beautiful Grandma - your seven children, 14 grandchildren, 11 great-grandchildren. I think it is most fitting that your next great grandchild will be born on your birthday. On October 3rd, Alessia will enter this world and share your birthday forever. 

You really did do it your way, Grump!