GETTING IT STRAIGHT

Brady remains our touchstone. For example, a few days after entering first grade in a new school, he confronted me out of the blue, hands on his hips: “So what are you, my step mom or what?” Taken aback, I responded, “No, Brady, because a step mom wouldn’t be related to you. You have my blood running through your veins.” He looked a bit confused. “Brady,” I continued, “I’m your grandmother and because I take care of you; I’m also your mom. You have two in one!” He said, “How about Dad?” I said, “Same thing.” Then he got a very serious look on his face and said, “So, let me get this straight. In real life, if Jaime were still my mom, you’d be my grandmother. But because she couldn’t do it, you’re my mom?” I said, “Yes.” He said, “God made a good decision.”  

CHAPTER EXCERPT

Please let me know what you think with your comments. Should we read our children's diaries if we think they're in trouble? 

Jaime was understandably livid when I told her what I had done. 

“How could you do that, Mom?” she screamed. “You had no right! You intruded on my privacy!”                        

“Jaime, I’m sorry, but it’s my duty,” I desperately improvised, “my duty as your mother, to protect you. If I don’t know what’s going on, then I can’t help you. And you need help!”                        

“I hate you for this,” she screamed. “I will never trust you, again.”                                 

She slammed her bedroom door and locked it.                                                

The next morning, I was referred to a therapist who treated adolescents. Jaime was still angry, perhaps justifiably so, but reluctantly she agreed to go. After about two months of weekly visits, the therapist met with me. “Jaime has a healthy view of herself,” she said with confidence. “Don’t worry. She’s fine.”            

                                                                                                                                               

Had my daughter snowed the therapist, just as I had snowed adults when I was a teenager?  Jaime got involved in wholesome high school activities, drum line and show choir, and met some very nice friends. Maybe the therapist was right. I felt encouraged and hoped this would give her the self-worth I felt she desperately needed.

Jaime seemed to live a double life. On the one hand, she was wholesome, talented and sweet. On the other, she was conniving, sneaky and trashy. In hindsight, Stu and I should have been stronger with our convictions and our parenting, but we weren’t. Her transgressions went unchecked. Because we viewed Jaime as fragile, we always gave her the benefit of the doubt. We just never thought she’d turn to drugs. 

EXCERPT FROM CHAPTER: "RAISING BRADY"

“I’m five years old, I know Karate, and I can take the pressure.”   -Brady, age 4-1/2

A therapist once told me that a child needs just one person to give them love and consistency in order to thrive; Brady has two. Because Stu and I were always present whether Jaime was there or wasn’t; the changeover for Brady when Jaime left was much less traumatic. It seemed almost natural when he transitioned into calling me, Mommy and Stu, Daddy. They were the roles he needed us in at the time.    
                                                                                                                   

As time went on, we felt like Brady was our child. We had to feel that way to parent him properly. We parent him like a natural parent but with the unconditional love of a grandparent. It’s not easy. We have to be the disciplinarians; when what we really want to do is read lots of books to him, keep him up late and spoil him like other grandparents we know. It’s a fine line and complicated to balance. Brady needed parents more than grandparents so Stu and I eventually abandoned the latter role. Although, he’s missing out on having grandparents, I know he feels the duality by our actions and attitude. Luckily, three of his great grandparents are still alive and even though they are on the east coast, they have shifted into the grand parenting roles. Brady knows that we’re his grandparents, but we’re Mom and Dad to him.

Excerpt from Chapter 1: "MOMMY?"

I’m not God. I’m not an angel.  I’m just a man. - Brady, age 5

How many parents can honestly say parenting is easy? Even the luckiest people, with the easiest children, face frequent challenges that they feel ill-equipped to handle. For my daughter Jaime, we had all known that parenting would be especially challenging, because she had a history of drug abuse. Even so, she immediately took to her role as Brady’s mother. Jaime enjoyed mothering and adored her son. She nursed him, nurtured him and as customary in the Jewish religion, gave him a Hebrew name: Shai Chaim, meaning Gift of Life.  The name suits him.

         
A few years later, in the preschool playground, I spotted my grandson, this little Gift of Life, playing with another little boy.                                    

“Brady, there’s your mommy!” he called out.    

For a brief second, Brady looked as if he were expecting someone else. Then seeing me his face broke out in a big smile of acceptance.
“Mommy!” he yelled with excitement.  

Taken aback, I actually turned to look behind me until I realized he was calling me.   

          
Until that moment, Brady had always referred to me as “Mama.” He couldn’t pronounce the “gr” sound when he was first forming his words, so that’s what stuck. When Brady would hear my daughter call to me, sometimes he would mimic her. I used to chuckle to myself when I’d hear him yelling “Mom!” in full voice from the top of the stairs, sounding just like my daughter. It struck me as cute. I never saw it as a premonition.  

Life is so unpredictable, full of irony. Irony, however, can come at such a cost.                                                                                                                                                

EXCERPT

After soccer, I made grilled cheese for Brady and a frozen dinner for myself. Gratefully, when we were finished eating, he did his homework with minimal prodding and then we played ”Word Bingo.” He practiced five minutes on piano and played fifteen minutes with his trains before taking a bath with his collection of boats where I washed his tangled hair and carefully combed out the knots. After persuading him to get out of the tub before his fingers turned into prunes, he got into his pajamas, I read him a bedtime story, and we both conked out.

            

This might seem normal for some moms with kids, but I’m in my early sixties raising my grandchild! 

                                                                                                                                                

After somewhat blindly raising four of my own children into adulthood, being a grandparent raising a grandchild, has given me, along with my husband, a second chance to re-assess and do it better.

            

Font & Space Crazy

To all my loyal Followers....

So sorry I've not been blogging but life took all my extra minutes away, which turned into months!
I'm trying to share excerpts from Fifth Child, but transferring them to the blog space is making me crazy! The fonts and spacing and line-up keeps changing on me, so forgive the rough read. Hopefully, it's interesting enough that the visual won't bother you.

Chapter Excerpt: We Didn't See It Coming

When my husband Stu’s brother was forty-seven, he and his wife had a baby. We couldn’t believe that his child would be three years old when he was fifty!

“Is he crazy raising a child at his age?” Stu said disapprovingly.
“It’s going to be so hard physically and emotionally,” I chimed in. “He’ll still be doing homework when he’s sixty!”
“Thank God, we’re past that,” Stu smugly said, feeling sorry for his brother and his newly scheduled life.
We also had good friends whose children had to work, so our friends became the caregivers of their grandchildren from six o’clock in the morning until six o’clock at night. They even turned their living room into a play area. Though they didn’t mind it a bit, Stu and I would just shake our heads, never imagining that could be us.
“Can you imagine being stuck at home every day taking care of toddlers?” he’d say with a negative shiver. “We’d never do that!”
“I’m just glad that’s a decision we will never have to make!” I concurred

***

As soon as Jaime realized she was pregnant, she became sober and stayed sober.

In her thirteenth week of pregnancy, Jaime wrote to her unborn child: "You stayed strong in my womb when I thought I couldn't go on. You believed in me when my heart lost its song. you believed in me when I couldn't find the strength. You taught me patience and wisdom to the end. I will nurture all I can and love with all my might. You are my baby and the blessing who saved my life."

Jaime saw her child as giving life to her, instead of her giving life to Brady. Perhaps this was the problem.
“Jaime,” I said with sincerity, “now would be a perfect time to work on your issues before the baby is born.”
I knew she’d probably reject my suggestion, but I had to try.
“There’s a terrific therapist I know, who works with addicts,” I eagerly said. “Even twelve-step meetings might give you support.”
“I hate twelve-step meetings,” she contemptuously said. “People just become addicted to meetings. And I don’t want to go to your therapist. I’ll be fine.”

My poor daughter. Choosing drugs in the first place meant that there was at least one buried problem that needed examining.
“Mom,” she said point blank, “I can do this on my own.”
This statement took my breath away. It filled me with fear. 

Three years later, Brady was two and a half on the day he called me "Mommy" at the playground. Jaime had been almost entirely absent from his life for six months. The poisons of methamphetamine had ravaged the girl who used to think clearly, and at one time, had a beautiful rosy complexion. Now, Jaime's face and arms were covered in lesions that she constantly scratched; she'd jerk her neck, as her eyes nervously jiggled. Our daughter, who thought she was going to be saved from her addiction because she gave birth to a child and would devote her life to him, was back on drugs.