The Empress of Peking

My boys have a new game.

When daddy comes home from work they speak in squeaky, high-pitched voices and claim to be Grandma. Daddy interviews them to figure out who is the real Grandma.
What is your favorite breakfast? Pasta. (It used to be wine, which CRACKED up the real Grandma)
Do you like to go to the movies? YES!
Who do you love? Michael and Dominic and William and Anna and Mei-Ling with her button nose!
Who is your best friend? Linda!

Last night the game went on painfully long and dominated all of dinner. It was a draw, they are both Grandma.

I have been thinking a lot about Babette lately, she has been gone a week, and I am alone to contemplate the month we had with her. She flew over with us and helped in every way to get settled here in Crowthorne. (If you are considering a similar adventure with small children, be sure you have the help of a loved one!)

Babette is a giver.
The list of what she has done for us is too long to repeat, but it includes giving us her time and her money in various generous amounts, repeat, repeat, repeat.
I am more tit for tat (not in everything, but generally speaking, my mind likes to find order and keep a balance). Being around a giver is a challenge for me, because ideally, I would like to keep up with her generosity, and not be buried in kindness, hopeless to return her favors.

My four children are graced with amazing grandparents. I am grateful to the universe for arranging this gift of love and devotion. How can I ever repay you, Universe?

Silvia and Guillermo, Mexican grandparents extraordinaire. They keep minute tabs on William and Anna, teach them to dance, laugh, argue, to be courteous and to be vital family members. I love them forever and would sell my soul to keep them in our lives. I am who I am, thanks in large part, to them.

Bubbe and Zaide, old fashioned grandparents, adoring them all, especially enjoying the big ones and let's get a babysitter for the under 5 crowd, shall we? Bubbe and Zaide are teaching their grandchildren to believe in psychics, love your spouse passionately, hike, bike, lift weights, drink swampjuice, and play golf when you have mostly grey hair (or when you're old, whichever comes last).

Grandpa Longton loved his grandbabies. Every trait possessed by the grandkids my dad was able to identify as Longton, or possibly Lalonde... No in-laws got credit in my dad's book. Dominic was born with Mike Spacone's man-sized perfect nose and my dad announced, "That's a Longton throwback nose!" What???
Days before my dad's death he was on the floor (yes, with leukemia, in hospice!) showing Michael and Dominic how magnets work, rolling them around his tiny house.

Grandpa Jim is their Harley-riding grandparent. Every kid should have one of those! Jim has massive man hands, rides horses in a crazy sport called "Team Penning" which involves other cowboys yelling curse words and cows with numbers on them. He is a sweet softy who has taught his grandkids the joy, no, not joy, the IMPORTANCE of pasta, and it's equally important partner, red sauce. When we get back to Tucson, I want to party on the beach in Mexico with Jim and the 4 grandkids, of course there will be pasta and lots of wine.

Nana and Papa, sweet, loving, adorable Sacramento grandparents. I love how they swoop in and nail all the kids with their love and attention. Donna is pure tenderness and attention and Pete is a walking love bomb. We are deeply grateful for them in our lives. They are the least Mexican grandparents, but they teach the kids to love El Mezon, mariachi music, and Sonoran hot dogs, which are best consumed in a parking lot in the cool evening of a hot summer. When we are in Tucson again we will go for raspados! This will be Donna's new favorite thing to do.

And there are great grandparents. When I met Mike he had lost only one of the 8 grandparents the universe had given him, today 4 are going strong. So a big saludo to Betty and Lou Adam, Grandma Sally Spacone, and Marge.

I would like to come to terms with the unevenness in relationships. Like that verse from the Bible, "There is a time for every season under heaven." Now is my season to receive from some, and to give to others.

Tea at the Jane Austen museum in Bath.
This is where we discovered the most delicious tea, Empress of Peking.
Of course, Babette surpised me after with a bag of this tea she had secretly bought for me. 

So I take from Babette.
I take her time, her help, her laundry skills, her babysitting hours. I take her money, even though I don't want it. I take her willingness to sit on the floor and build a Lego Starwars ship, I take the stories of her life that she shares, I take her permanent good mood, I take the love she has for my family and her love for our family. And most of all, I take her son, my soul's greatest blessing.

Thank you God in heaven for the love you have packed into Babette, for the caring kindness she heaps on us. May we all be grateful and loving and kind.

And once last gripe, if I may. My husband had better not be deluded into thinking that I will be that good looking when I am in my sixties. Am I right??