May 2008 - Posts

• The Strays

  As you may recall, the wife and I applied the term ‘strays’ to all of the uncivilized hooligans who attempted to woo our daughters over the years. As the perpetual punk parade would stroll through our living room, my bride and I would marvel at their awkwardness and idiocy. We’d wonder if they learned table manners from competitive eating competitions. We’d run to the computer and Google America’s Most Wanted Juveniles. Then our daughters would look at us with those doe-y ‘can-I-keep-him’ eyes, and we’d retreat to the safe house we called our boudoir and simultaneously laugh and cry ourselves to sleep. The strays we ‘let them keep’ – the son-in-law and the son-in-law-to-be - are polar opposites, and to appreciate them you have to first appreciate our daughters. As previously mentioned, both girls – Jackie and Chelsea – are as different as night and day. Chels was the studious bookworm with strange friends. Jackie was the diligent worker with delinquent friends. Jackie was into hip-hop; Chels knew all the lyrics to obscure Righteous Brothers’ tunes. Jackie’s a smart-ass and Chels is a smart-… okay, so they do have a few similarities. It stands to reason, then, that the strays that stayed would have equally disparate characteristics. Jay – who was into cars and football - played the respectful beau role right away. He went along with my doting-dad routine right up until I made him this deal: “Considering you’re in the landscaping business, I’m guessing I can get some trees removed?” I asked. “And since you’re sleeping with my daughter, I’m also guessing I can have them removed for free?”   We planted a garden where those trees used to be. On the other hand, Adam – who played guitar and was into football - took about three months to utter his first complete sentence to us. I blamed my wife for his timid nature – she was always a bit anxious to tell the story of the ‘boyfriend who’s buried in the basement.’ She held me responsible given my penchant for cleaning the Remington 700 Heavy Barrel .308 with sniper scope whenever he picked her up for a date. Jay had an earring; Adam had a light post through his ear. Jay buzzes his hair; Adam buys hair gel by the vat. Jay is a bull in a china shop with a raucous sense of humor; Adam is reserved and introspective with a quick and quiet wit. My point is that for all their disparity, they do have one thing in common: they took our daughters from our home – the house that seems a little emptier with each passing day. Jackie and Jay are married now, and the coolest little grandson on the planet played a starring role in the ceremony. Chelsea and Adam will be married on June 14, and I can honestly say that Chels is probably as happy now as we’ve ever seen her. The two couples have definitely crossed that threshold of togetherness. You can see it in the way they look at each other, pick on each other and support each other. You see it in the way they work toward a future that we always hoped they’d have. And it reminds me of my own marriage, and the way my wife and I still look at each other, pick on each other, and support each other. They say you can’t pick your family. But your family can pick its extended members, and so far it looks like our daughters did a damn good job letting these strays follow them home. -by J. Doug Gill Posted May 30 2008, 09:49 AM by poopaw with no comments Filed under: poopaw [Edit Tags]

• Marriage, Marriage, marriagemarriagemarriage

  Our oldest son, Travis, coined the phrase used for the titling of this installment. For more than two years now, our family’s Sunday dinner gatherings have resulted (some would say degenerated) in wedding discussions. On the dreaded Sundays, I’d either focus on a sporting event to tune them out, or I’d wander off to the deck or the kitchen or the liquor cabinet until the chirping subsided. Within minutes, the sons and the strays would find my hiding place and intrude on my solitude. ‘Shouldn’t you be eating my food, drinking my alcohol or sitting in my favorite chair?’ I would pleasantly query. “Yeah,” Travis would utter, totally oblivious to my biting sarcasm, “but in there it’s all about wedding, wedding, weddingweddingwedding.”  Had my fingers and toes not begun their numbing process, I would have felt their pain. Lest they forget I live with the mother of the wedding planners, so my life is in a perpetual state of nuptial update. First came the duo with the illegitimate offspring. Let’s see: we had the dating, the sex, the pregnancy, the birth, the home purchase, and the first birthday of the sprite and now we’re having the wedding? I would have suffered little embarrassment if my oldest daughter had opted to join the other child-swollen women in white you see roaming the county courthouse. So, as these daily bulletins of dress colors, cake varieties, guest lists and hair and make-up took years off my life, our youngest daughter flashed a sparkly diamond and announced that the stray we call Adam had proposed. Daily bulletins had become hourly information sessions. There was a doubling of the chatter about wedding parties, showers, rehearsal dinners, mother of the bride dresses, shoes, flowers, centerpieces, times, dates, days, seating, processionals, limousines, bachelorette parties, being there and going here. Honestly, only two communiqués made a lasting impression: the news that my in-laws were coming from California and didn’t reserve a hotel room and that I now had to fork over another 150 bucks for a tuxedo. Finally – in a moment of sheer idiocy – I told my wife to save the details – I don’t need to know about a June rehearsal dinner in March. I don’t care about the buttoneer until I have to pin it on and even then I don’t care what kind of flower it is. Cake? Unless the Ace of Cakes is in charge of baking it’s going to taste like every other dry, over-iced wedding cake I’ve ever eaten three bites of. And I told her that I was adopting an ‘in-one-ear-and-out-the-other’ policy until the day before my presence at any wedding-related event was required. I’m thinking she’ll start speaking to me again at the reception. A few weeks ago I was prepping for the summer season – the time of year when men buy men toys like mowers and blowers, grills and utensils, and tractors and whackers. I’m thinking it’s time for a new Weber, I announced, not expecting a reply from the woman who now merely tolerates my existence. “And where do suppose the disposable income is coming from?” my wife growled, breaking her vow of silence. ‘These weddings have cost us thousands.” That was the last thing I remembered. When the paramedics finally had me breathing on my own, I lie there reflecting on the hard lessons I had learned: 1) I need to start buying my Scotch by the case and 2) I should really be paying more attention at these Sunday dinners. By J. Doug Gill Posted May 27 2008, 11:25 AM by poopaw with 2 comment(s) [Edit Tags]

• Heartstrings and Happy Meals

  In my grandfather handbook (non-print version) there’s a chapter on grand parenting hierarchy. The flowchart looks a little like this: El Presidente – father of the daughter who birthed the runt (this only applies when mother of said daughter is of the step mom variety – maternal grandmas outrank the Joint Chiefs). Vice Presidente – mother of the barbarian who tainted the daughter of El Presidente. El Irrelevante – the remainder of the powerless relatives who will get to see the child whenever I green light the rendezvous. I’m not sure when it happened, but somewhere between the birth of my grandson and his first birthday, I lost the title of alpha grandparent. I don’t recall the election that overturned the chain of command – nor do I remember being unseated by a hostile coup. But I am now fully aware that some kind of military junta controls my visitation rights with the elf who eats, poops and drools. ‘What time will you be here for <insert seasonal holiday here> dinner?’ I would ask my daughter. “Well, Jay’s mother wants us to stop by her house first,” came the reply. It was a laundry list of stopovers before they would arrive at the home in which she was raised and nurtured. “And then we’ll see Jay’s dad, and Jay’s grandmother, and Jay’s accountant and Jay’s tractor mechanic.” Translated: thanks to Generalissimo Queen-in-law, we get to see the baby once he’s begun the process of spitting up multiple meals, juiced on high fructose corn syrup, and as pleasant as Rosie O’Donnell touring the Bush Presidential Library. Solution? Viva la revolution! But, if you’re going to start a rebellion (and bring down the paternal grandmother) you need backing. I considered approaching my wife and the other children, but they have jobs and lives. My mother was an option, but once you hit the mid-60s the only backbone bravery that remains has been ravaged by osteoporosis. My brother? Too busy being selfishly childless. The only time my brother and sister-in-law interact with children is when they’re trying to have them removed from restaurants they frequent. The folks at Chuckie Cheese never tire of that one. My only hope was corporate backing, and this battle was about to be sponsored by McDonald’s. Seizing the opportunity – thanks to being a work-at-home Poo-paw – I scheduled Wednesday afternoon lunches with my grandson. Not only would I show up with Happy Meals and milkshakes, but I also would tell the child that his other grand parents want him to eat liver and broccoli. He wouldn’t really start crying until I told him they found SpongeBob to be socially unacceptable. Poor kid. You could just hear the “sproing” of the heartstrings that formerly tethered him to the ‘enemy.’ At this point I would hand him off to one of the parents – didn’t matter which one, I was there to see the baby – kiss him on the head and trek back to my side of the demilitarized zone. This year, when I inquired as to birthday plans for my now trans-fat-filled grandson, my daughter asked if we minded hosting our own party for him. They had decided to split the celebrations between both houses on different days. Oh, yeah! That’s right! You better keep watching your back, Evita-Marcos-Castro-Chavez-in-law; governments have been toppled for less.   By J. Doug Gill Posted May 22 2008, 10:21 AM by poopaw with no comments Filed under: poopaw [Edit Tags]

• Mr. Thirty Dollars a Day

  My grandson is a beast. Not the hairy, forage-for-food-in-the-woods type, but the kind that can mow through a dinner plate like lumberjacks clear-cutting a forest. He didn’t qualify for the Guinness book at birth – just your average something-pounder of a typical, certain length. Okay, I don’t remember the specifics – I can’t be a grandfather and have a photographic memory. Let’s put it this way: had he been a rockfish pulled from the Chesapeake it would have warranted a digital photo of the event. What made his stature so surprising was the berth from which he sailed - my daughter, Jackie, is the size of the Travelocity gnome. Think Piglet birthing Pooh Bear for comparatives. After watching him guzzle a wine cask full of formula in his first few days of life, my daughter made the wise decision to abandon breastfeeding. My son-in-law, Jay, and I volunteered to search high and low for additional pairs of feeding apparatus, but in this house veto power lies in the hands of the females. Life is indeed unfair. After my grandson had consumed the hospital’s courtesy case of Similac for his welcome home breakfast, Jay sold all of his worldly possessions on Ebay and set out for diapers and formula. We never saw him again. Just kidding! But there was nary a jest when we next spoke. “Kinda tough getting used to the 2 a.m. feedings,” he confided, “But the little guy is fine, Jackie’s fine – everything’s fine but the bank account.” Ahhh…barren bank accounts - reminds me of the pre-empty-nest days and wearing the same suit pants so often they no longer matched the “matching” jacket. “Diapers are a buck a piece. You got powders, ointments, toys, pacifiers, bottles, nipples, the thing to wash the bottles and nipples, cups, vitamins, jumpers, footies – and I swear I can get a case of Clipper City Gold for a lot less than a case of formula.” All of a sudden my agronomist son-in-law became an economist (I have another stray who is an economist marrying into the family in June – I’m guessing his first-born will come with quarterly financials). I was waiting for the report on adjusted costs of hospitalization, outpatient care, medication and travel. “I figure your grandson is costing me 30 bucks a day.” Now, I’m just about four years removed from feeding four teenagers on a daily basis, being an ATM for college students, and posing as the entire bank branch for an oldest son who goes through automobiles as if he’s filming the chase scene for the next Bond movie. We’ve co-signed loans, written off loans and taken out loans on our loans. We’ve mortgaged, re-mortgaged, and mortgaged the mortgage. If you’re seeking sympathy here, oh wielder of organ responsible for Mr. 30 Dollars a Day, your search will be as fruitless as the ongoing hunt for an intelligent congressman. By J. Doug Gill Posted May 20 2008, 08:20 AM by poopaw with no comments Filed under: poopaw [Edit Tags]

• The Dad and the Bunny Suit

  I know you’ve seen the movie, “A Christmas Story.” Ralphie, the central character, is a nine year-old boy with an aunt (aunt Clara) who clearly thinks he is a four year-old girl. On Christmas morning, Ralphie tears open Clara’s gift and inside is a fuzzy, pink bunny suit complete with ‘sappily staring blue button eyes’ on the slippers. Ralphie modeling the suit for his family – while his father cracked that he looked like a deranged Easter Bunny - was undoubtedly one of the most humiliating moments in the young boy’s life. My grandson was born in March, and was just about a month old when his first Easter rolled around. As with most holidays and milestone occasions, our brood returns home bearing gifts and seeking a free meal. I was adding some Scotch to the ham and basting the cook – wait, I have that backwards – when my son-in-law crashed through the door. ‘Don’t blame me, Doug,’ Jay exclaimed, ‘It’s not my fault – blame it on your daughter.’ My first thought was that my daughter was pregnant again – new grand fathers tend to be a bit gun shy – and that Jay was merely trying to postpone the inevitable, repeated stabbing of him with the carving fork I now held firmly in my hand. Jackie strolled through the front door, looking haggard like most new moms, and laid the little bundle on our sofa. Peeling away the layers of blanket revealed a fluffy blue bunny suit with pointy ears and skid-resistant footies. The package was made whole by the cottony white tail on the boy’s bum. While the wife and daughters cooed about cuteness, I sized up my son-in-law. Here stood a six-foot-four landscaper sporting a Marine haircut and a barbwire tattoo around his bicep. He drove a Ford four-wheel drive, wrestles his 140-pound Rottweiler, and subscribes to the theory that NFL players should simply rub some dirt on their ruptured spleen and get back to the huddle. And don’t get him started on ‘turf-toe.’ “I told her not to put him in that girlie-crap,” the rant continued. “Might as well put a bow in his hair.” Seeing their opening, the assembled females jumped in with all three pairs of feet. “I’ll get him an Easy Bake Oven for Christmas,” our youngest daughter chimed. “We’ll get him the Fisher-Price Play Kitchen for his birthday,” the wife added. “And Barbie and Ken would make great stocking stuffers!” My mother, as the saying goes, didn’t raise a dummy, so I returned to the sanctity of the Scot…er, kitchen. Jay was not far behind. ‘Let it go,’ I advised, trying to convince him that a bunny suit at birth will not trifle with his future brute masculinity. Besides, it’s not like a bunny suit will have the boy aspiring to dress like Richard Simmons and star in his preschool’s production of La Cage Aux Folles. Just to be safe, however, I did a little consumer research: and you’d be surprised at just how inexpensive toddler-size barbwire tattoos really are. By J. Doug Gill Posted May 14 2008, 05:44 AM by poopaw with 2 comment(s) Filed under: poopaw [Edit Tags]

• Daughter See, Daughter Do?

  Having two daughters doubled the parental trouble. I would look at them fondly and think back to something my mother always told me: “Douglas, when you raise boys you only have to worry about one penis. With girls, you have to worry about every penis in town.” And she wonders why I ‘waste all that money in therapy.’ Even though our girls are step-siblings, we had hoped they would begin to mirror each other’s likes and dislikes – food, clothes, friends, school, boyfriends – while, of course, maintaining their own distinctly adorable personalities. Yeah, we were damn naïve back in the early days. For one of our first Christmases as a family, my wife tried to force the matter and buy them both the same brand of… er, um… panties. You just can’t beat Wal-Mart’s thirty pair for three dollars deal. Not only were they displeased with the choice of stocking stuffer, our youngest daughter – Chelsea – freed a pair of the undies and unfolded them. And unfolded them some more. And unfolded them again. We she finally got around to holding them up, they were large enough to use as a beach tote – or as a parachute for a preschooler. The two girls laughed until that spring, and to this day agree that it was one of the most heinous gifts they’d ever received. And it was the last thing they agreed on. Jackie could eat a bowl of yard clippings; Chelsea wouldn’t eat a vegetable if they had Twinkie cream in the middle. Jackie brought home friends who either drove muscle cars or had sex in the back seat with guys who drove muscle cars. Chelsea brought home friends who couldn’t afford cars and wore Che Guevara t-shirts. When Jackie found out she was pregnant, Chelsea was in her last year of college. It was the first time my wife and I were actually pleased that both girls had followed their own disparate paths. ‘Surely,’ we assumed, ‘Chelsea won’t want anything to do with baby weight, dirty diapers, two a.m. feedings and labor pains. Perhaps Jackie’s rendezvous with one of the aforementioned ‘penises in town’ might even force Chelsea to consider a vow of celibacy.’ A few weekends had passed when Chels showed up with her semester full of laundry. She flung her bags in the room, plopped down on our sofa and moaned about how tired she was. Heavy class schedule? Lots of late night cramming? “No,” she clarified, “Last night was the campus’s weekly beer and porn night and I’m exhausted.” Well, here’s hoping she shares Jackie’s taste in maternity clothes. By J. Doug Gill Posted May 09 2008, 01:40 PM by poopaw with no comments Filed under: poopaw [Edit Tags]

• The Grandpa Prototype

  It seemed, at times, that I had to be the luckiest kid alive. So many of my junior high and senior high classmates would cite the passing of a grandparent as the reason for school absence. Close friends would eschew a weekend of partying or miss little league games to attend funerals or sit Shivas for a passing grandmother or grandfather. I was lucky enough to have both of my grandparents until my 40s – my children had great grandparents well into their teen years. And we are surely all the better for it. When I think of my grandfather – wearing an old, tattered baseball cap and telling me how to catch the rainbow trout thick in the stream that ran though his yard – I think of my own grand parenting abilities. ‘Joe,’ he would say in his slow, Virginia drawl (my grandfather was the only relative allowed to call me by my given name), ‘Is everything going okay?’ I knew that was his way of asking me about money and my job and my kids and my divorce and my house and all facets of my life. And most important: my happiness. And I’d ramble. I’d sit on the screened porch with both of my grand parents and rant about parents, girlfriends, wives, children, school, cars and politics. And we’d laugh. And my grandmother would make sandwiches and iced tea. And they’d tell me I was crazy. And when I kissed them both good-night – whether I was 14 or 40 – I’d sleep knowing every word I uttered would be held in confidence. And I knew the next day – out of earshot of my grandmother – my grandfather would dole out the advice he held close in the conversations from the night before. On one of the first opportunities I had to hold my grandson in my arms, I kissed the little guy on his head and thought of my grandfather. I knew how thrilled he would be to see his great-granddaughter’s little boy. I knew how proud he would be of me for playing such a role in my daughter’s life. But I didn’t know what it was that made him such a wonderful grand parent - that was one of the conversations we never had. Both of my grandparents have been gone for a few years now. When I’m cleaning out dressers or rummaging through old file boxes I’ll stumble across an old photo or three and it will remind me just how much I miss them. And I’ll fight back tears because that void in my life will never be filled. From a grandparent perspective, that man set the bar pretty high – he was certainly the grandpa prototype. I can’t imagine ever filling that tattered ball cap. But I can still hear their voices and remember their laughter from those days and nights on that porch, and somewhere out there (or up there) I think the both of them still keep an eye on me. And if I can make time to always ask my little grandson if ‘everything is okay,’ and be patient and understanding while he answers, maybe my grandfather will somehow know that his actions and advice couldn’t have paid a higher dividend. By J. Doug Gill Posted May 07 2008, 10:12 AM by poopaw with no comments Filed under: grandfather [Edit Tags]

• In Labor Day

  The day began like any other. Shower, shave, slap on a tie and head to the corporate office. I was the communications director for a landlord association in those days – trying my best to make liars, thieves and con artists seem like viable members of the community. Did you hear about the young couple that called the pet store and ordered 30,000 cockroaches? They were moving, they explained to the surprised clerk, and their lease said they had to leave the apartment in the same condition they found it. ‘Doug,’ my admin said as she poked her head into my office. ‘Your daughter just went into labor and they’re on their way to the hospital.’ Since the liquor store had yet to open I went straight to Labor & Delivery – hoping I would get there just in time to teach the boy how to throw a curveball. Missed it by a few years. Instead, nurses ushered me into a room that could have doubled for a suite at the Hilton. Sofas, chairs, mood lighting, televisions – the only thing missing was the concierge. And I’m guessing the last time my daughter was spread-eagle in a suite was when the about-to-be-birthed humanoid was conceived. I felt a tinge of sympathy for my son-in-law-to-be. There he stood – pale and nervous – in a room with not only the woman who was about to give birth to his child, but also with his mother and the parents of the mom-to-be. ‘Gitmo,’ I remember thinking to myself, ‘was probably the only place in the world this young man wouldn’t rather be.’ I’ll save you the gory details of the birth – mainly because I couldn’t see anything with that hospital gown tied securely around my eyes – and skip to the post-natal wrap-up. Later that evening – under the guise of special grandparent visiting rights – the desk nurse walked me to the ward where I could find the newest member of our family. ‘Your daughter is feeding him,’ she said, pointing toward a set of double doors. ‘They’re right through there.’ And she headed back to her station. I stood in the doorway for a while. To me, my daughter will always be the little girl in the Rainbow Bright nightgown. The one who stood on a stool to help me with the dishes when she was four. The one who thought how cool it was for her dad to be a ‘group mom’ on one of her field trips. She will always be the tom-boy who was as comfortable jumping into a cold mountain lake as she was being a mall-rat lobbying for eye make-up. She is the smart-ass who made me laugh and the one who worried me so because she was a lot like me. And on the other side of those doors sat a daughter who wasn’t a little girl anymore – she was a mom – a mother, holding her little one and worried for all the world what life held in store for him. Before bed, I kissed my wife a little harder and hugged her a little longer, because the day that began like any other, ended like no other ever had. By J. Doug Gill Posted May 06 2008, 08:19 AM by poopaw with no comments Filed under: grandfather, giving birth, labor [Edit Tags]

• The Step Mom and the Vagina

  “Di?” We were hosting another in a long line of Sunday family dinners when my daughter approached the wife - her step-mom, Diana. My kids call her Di. Her kids call me Doug. Or Douglas. Or Dougie if my stepdaughter is lobbying me with cuteness. Sometimes she uses Dougie to chastise me. “Dougie, you can’t wear your underwear out to get the mail.” I prefer the solid-color boxer briefs; that way I can classify a black t-shirt and black Hanes drawers as a “short-set.” And I can certainly wear a short-set out to the mailbox. But I digress. “Di,” my daughter continued, “I’d like to ask you something. The hospital said I had no limit on the number of people in the delivery room. I would really like for you to be in there with me when I give birth.” My wife – as most women are wont to do – started to cry. Now, save for a few months when we first Brady-Bunched our clan, this blended sextet has grown to genuinely love and care for each other. And even though my daughter had come to think of Diana as her mom, asking her to share in this momentous occasion certainly sealed the deal. A threshold of affection had been crossed, and the chick blubbering had begun. Stop! Save your emails calling me a sexist or chauvinist or whatever word females substitute for ‘male pig’ these days. I cry too. In the last few years I can point to many an occasion when the tears welled in these tired, bloodshot eyes: when the Ravens won the Super Bowl; when the Ravens lost to the Colts in the playoffs; and when the Ravens traded up to draft Kyle Boller. So it’s not like I don’t understand emotional, okay? After the sons and the daughters (and their strays) had grazed from the parental trough – and our oldest son had carried three meals worth of leftovers out to his car - my wife stopped me in mid-dish-wash. “I was really moved by Jackie’s offer,” my wife said through a quivering bottom lip. “It really meant a lot to me… but…” Hmmm – buts are normally bad. “But I’m not sure I’m ready to see my step-daughter’s vagina as we stand there watching her cervix dilate.” Whoa! Hold it right there, sister. A father should never hear ‘daughter and her vagina’ in the same sentence. Plus, the vagina-phobia was coming from a woman who – throughout their teen years - had shown both of our daughters how to put condoms on a banana, spoke freely of yeast infections, and encouraged them both to be lesbians so we wouldn’t have to go through this “dilating cervix” stuff to begin with. She was so on her own with this one. So, I told my wife I forgave her for uttering such profanity and reached for the Scotch bottle. When it was clear they wouldn’t have to help with the dishes, the kids – along with the vagina in question - poked their heads into the kitchen. “Oh, and dad,” the pregnant one said, “You can be in the delivery room with me, too.” And I thought I had issues with seeing her very first training bra. By J. Doug Gill Posted May 06 2008, 08:13 AM by poopaw with 1 comment(s) Filed under: stepmom, delivery room [Edit Tags]

• They Call Me Mrs. Gill

  I don’t recall why, but I was somehow cajoled into picking up the wife from our daughter’s baby shower. I’m thinking the formula was: wife + future in-laws = vats of wine. To make matters worse, I had to “stop in and speak to people and see all the stuff our daughter is getting.” I knew that my daughter and future son-in-law would soon be purchasing a house, so I figured I could see the shower gifts once they move in. As far as speaking to people, the additional brilliant deduction was that I could ‘speak to people’ at milestone events in my forthcoming grandchild’s life. Events such as his first birthday, a couple of little league games and perhaps even his high school graduation. The next 20 years of my social schedule were officially booked. My wife doesn’t enjoy my humor as much as I do, so there I was walking into a houseful of old women…. I mean seasoned females…. sipping chardonnay and sitting among a house-scape that resembled multiple stork explosions. I said hello to my very frazzled, enormously pregnant daughter, and heard an uproarious caterwauling coming from the dining area. I think it was the dining room – it could have been the triage table for anyone who had succumbed to the confetti shrapnel. Around the table stood five or six women – my lovely wife among them – squeaking noises like ‘mee-maw,’ ‘nana,’ ‘mawmaw,’ ‘moomaw,’ ‘grangran’ and ‘yaya.’ If not for the jangling jewelry their husbands’ purchased and the smell of Jean Nate, one would have thought one had stumbled upon the annual meeting of the Audubon Society’s donkey caller’s competition. ‘What’s going on in there,” I asked my daughter. ‘Oh… my… God,’ she said, dragging out her words for effect. ‘For the last half hour they’ve been talking about what the baby is going to call them.’ Some quick math was in order. Eight months pregnant, plus nearly two years before he utters anything more than ‘goo’ or ‘uh,’ equals why are we having this conversation now? “Hello, everyone,” I sauntered into the combat zone hoping to rescue my wife from the inane nickname conversation. “There he is… there’s grandpa,” someone said, slowing my progression to what was left of the finger sandwiches. “I guess we have to decide what the baby will be calling you,” someone else added, and I could feel the blood rushing from my head. Without a witty response, I reasoned, I could be trapped in this silly conversation, too. “Moot point,” was my retort, “I won’t be interacting with the imp until he’s old enough to pee in a toilet and able to tell a waiter – in proper English - that he’ll have his New York strip medium-rare.” Did I mention how no one enjoys my humor quite as much as I do? We had been in the car for about 2 minutes when my wife turned to me. “You should save those sarcastic one liners for people who get them,” she chided, noting the seriousness with which my daughter’s soon-to-be-in-laws greeted my stand-up routine. “But I tell you one thing,” she added, “before I end up with ‘meemaw’ by default, I’ll be telling that boy to call me Mrs. Gill.” Now that’s funny. By J. Doug Gill Posted May 03 2008, 11:44 AM by poopaw with no comments Filed under: names [Edit Tags]

• We Heard the News Today (Oh, Boy)

  It may have been a bye week; if the Ravens had been playing I wouldn’t have heard a word they said. But there they sat – my future son-in-law and my oldest daughter – prim and proper on our living room sofa. They both sported the sort of facial expression you’d see if someone were headed into the confessional after a weekend in Vegas. “We’re going to have a baby,” my daughter confided, and then she burst into the kind of tears I hadn’t seen since her New Kids on the Block cassette was eaten by the portable tape player. My first reaction was ‘not in this house you’re not,’ but I kept those words to myself and did what any self-respecting father would do at that moment: I screamed up the steps for my wife to come downstairs. My wife did what would have been the last thing on my list: she hugged my daughter (and the owner of the penis who intruded on my Sunday) and told them both that everything was going to be okay. I was even convinced by her confidence, and found out later that hiding both of my automatic weapons had buoyed her self-assuredness. I asked them if they had a plan – a plan for the baby’s and the mother’s prenatal health. I asked about the plan for childcare and working. I asked about being ready for the responsibility of parenthood. I asked my wife for a tumbler of scotch and ice. And I asked if they planned on getting freakin’ married! To be fair, daughter and sperm donor had dated for years. Jay – that’s the heathen’s name – has had his own successful landscaping business for several years, and was probably the most polite and well behaved ‘stray’ our daughter ever brought home. We were quite familiar with Jay and had grown quite fond… well, tolerant of him. Still, we weren’t prepared for what was next: they actually did have a plan. Plans for my daughter to work during the winter when Jay’s business demands weren’t as great. He would stay home with the baby. In the spring and summer, my daughter would take a hiatus from her job and take care of the spawn. They had their eye on a house in a neighborhood close by (since purchased), and had already secured (and visited) ob/gyns and pediatricians. Miracle of miracles; a couple of twenty-somethings had a plan. After they had gone, my better half and I shared fears, expectations, tears and trepidations. We spoke of being grandparents in our mid-to-late 40s. And we knew that we could do no more than hope for the best, and put our trust in the decisions that Jay and Jackie would make. Later that evening – during my weekly phone call that hopefully keeps me in the will - I told my mother of the news. “Well, that’s just wonderful,” the semi-senile birther of yours truly exclaimed. Given my surprise at her reaction I repeated myself. “You just said that,” she replied, “Are you stoned?” The answer was yes, but that wasn’t related to the conversation. Then it hit me: my mother had been a grandmother for 24 years – she had already lost most of her mind. “Douglas,” mom said softly after listening to my five-minute rant on 46 being too young to be a grandfather. “I was only 43 when you made me a grandmother.” So, mom, how ‘bout them Ravens? By J. Doug Gill Posted May 01 2008, 11:37 AM by poopaw with no comments Filed under: grandfather, grandparent [Edit Tags]