Family glue

“We’re kidnapping you,” I said, Kleenex bandana over my mouth, walking in the front door to stunned looks.  “For breakfast,”  I added.

My daughter, the GAP, lifted the little Mouse from his crib.  He raised his head, still groggy.  “Ya Ya,” he announced and grinned, stretching out his arms to me.  The Worm slipped on a pair of gloves.  “It’s really hard putting on shoes and socks,” the Worm admitted.  I laughed.  Why do we always make things hard on ourself?  Couponman, discount in hand, and the Bug chomped at the idea of pancakes.  We held the three pajama-clad grandchildren hostage at Denny’s (no one even questioned the bed hair and pj’s). 

In the afternoon, the grandkids turned the tables and held us hostage at the Worm’s last soccer game of the season.  The sacrifice of time to watch six-year-olds, too soon seven years old, run helter skelter would leave a lasting impression, we hoped, on these amateurs.  

The next morning, the antithesis of a day of rest, I got up at the crack of dawn (lost my favorite earring down the bathtub drain) and threw together chili fixings and a pumpkin roll from Halloween leftovers for Coco.  She’s had health issues recently, and her communication has waned.  I could snoop more into her life, I thought, if I trekked fifty miles away one way to her work IN THE RAIN, AFTER stopping at church to listen to my brother speak, and making another OUT OF THE WAY pitstop to pick up grandkids to join me on my neddlesome adventure.  (One of them volunteered to drive.)  Besides Coco needed to see more of her niece and nephews.

We passed the time with a game of A, B, C’s.  The challenge:  name Christmas things that begin with the letters of the alphabet in order.  “Horse,” shouted the Worm for H. 

“Nah, that’s not Christmas,” said the Bug.

“Yes, it is,” I countered.  “Remember the horse pulling the sleigh in Jingle Bells.”

“Yeah, the one-horse sleigh,” she said.  “Or, it could be a two-horse sleigh, or even a five-horse sleigh.  It could even be a hundred-horse sleigh.”  I could see a resemblance between me and the Worm already…  getting a tad carried away.

We thought for sure a yak was a close relative of reindeer, and that there must be a story about a Christmas zebra somewhere.  When we finally arrived at the Veteran Gardens, nearly an hour after pulling onto the highway, Coco’s car was nowhere to be seen.  She’d taken a sick day from work. 

We opened the pumpkin roll and shared it (her loss) on a rain-soaked picnic bench, then headed on the long drive back for a family dinner I’d planned with the grandkids and their parents, because Couponman and I would be out of state for Thanksgiving. 

Just when it seemed like my efforts to keep the family in touch and intact had failed…  when things didn’t turn out like I planned…  a beautiful rainbow could be seen in the distance, and I am reminded that my job is to be the family glue.  To hold the family together. 

And for your information, there is a Christmas zebra.  Long ago, my dad brought me a ceramic zebra for holidays on a return from one of his flights when he worked for North American Aviation.  It was one of my favorite treasures (and still is).  But one evening, as a teenager, things hadn’t gone like I’d planned and I’d gotten angry.  I tossed the treasure on my bed.  It bounced and hit the wall, breaking off a leg.  The glue has held it together for the past fifty years.

I work sooooo hard at creating memorable family experiences.  Some think maybe too hard.  But I won’t give up.  Maybe some day they will remember me as the glue who held the family together.

Related posts:

1. Something old, something new
2. Halloween on a budget
3. Leave them alone
4. Everything you ever wanted to be
5. Let me introduce you to my family