Unsolicited Advice

 I am one of those rare people who will offer you unsolicited advice. Wait—hear me out. Unsolicited advice is the best advice. 

Often, when we seek advice from others, we give careful consideration to whom we ask. For example, parents usually don’t seek parenting advice from their child-free friends. Although, when I hark back to my child-free days, I had plenty of opinions on proper parenting—it’s just that few people cared to hear them. I’m not saying that stopped me...but my friends with kids didn’t come knocking when they need to know how to deal with little Becky’s biting.

Guess which one of this adorable babies
is *not* my grandchild?
Hint: It's not the little girl...It's cousin
Wes Burbee and he's delicious.

  Anyway, I lost my point. Ah!  Here it is! My point is that unasked for advice is unbiased advice.

When I want to do something—say travel to Mexico-- I ask my adventure-oriented friends if I should go or not. If I were trying to avoid an upcoming trip south of the border, I’d ask my cozy, stay-at-home friends if I should go or just stay home? Staying home would most likely be their advice.

Unsolicited advice, on the other hand, comes to you free of biases. It’s spontaneous, it’s free, and it may contain encouragement you didn’t even know you needed.

Spontaneous advice can be closely related to “Wild Hair” advice, but you really shouldn’t over think either one. When someone approaches you and suggests, “You know what you ought to do...” don’t dismiss them out of hand. Hear them out. It can be good to open your horizons, stretch your wings, and kick over the boundaries fencing you in. Try saying “YES!” Book the trip, go bungee jumping, run with the bulls...

I mean, I’m not going to do that—it sounds dangerous and crazy. But I bet you’d have fun...

If you were wondering what any of these pictures have to do with this post, the answer is NOTHING. They are just bonus content of adorableness...You're welcome!

Christmas Traditions, a New Generation

 Christmas is a time of traditions, some old, some new, and this year-some come 'round again. When my children were little, my mom started buying wooden Brio train sets for her three grandsons. Every year, for Christmas and birthdays, she would purchase more track, or bridges, or battery powered engines. All during the year the boys would head to Grandma and Grandpa's, drag out the blue Rubbermaid tub, and set up lavish railroads; tracks and tunnels sprawling across the living room floor. Grandchildren and grandparents shared the adventure. It was hard to know who enjoyed it more.

But time flies. Eventually, the boys packed the tracks up in the blue Rubbermaid tub for what turned out to be the last time and moved on to other interests: sports and motorcycles, video games and girls. But Grandma held onto the tub, knowing that-- if you're patient, and lucky--sometimes things come around again.

John Shane contemplates the best box car line-up.

My mom is gone now, my children grown-becoming fathers themselves---that girl thing having worked itself out admirably. When my grandchildren visit Nana Sugar's, we dust off the old blue Rubbermaid tub and sort out the pieces. Dads and uncles turn into little boys again, and we all---young and not so young--turn the pieces of the track, this way, and that way, figuring out the best path around the room.

Oh no, there goes Toyko...here comes Lane!

My Amazon cart is full of presents for Christmases Yet to Come: suspension bridges, curves and elevation blocks, straight tracks and small couplers; an old tradition, come 'round again. 

Please excuse the anti scratch tape on the furniture
We have some Very Bad Catz

The completed track with bonus siding

Adventures in SugarLand Part 2

 

Welcome back to Adventures in Sugar Land, where I share the hijinks my grands and I get up to. I also overshare the mayhem and mishaps, so buckle up—this ride might get a little bumpy.

When we last saw our heroes, they had just successfully completed a diaper change, stuck the landing, and were now relaxing in front of The Big Cat Cage at the Zoo. Editor’s note: It’s not really the Zo—never mind. Whatever. It’s “a” Zoo.

Where was I? Oh yes, THE Zoo—watching the big cats when suddenly my snuggly little grandson seemed a bit more squishy than usual...and sort of—dampish. AND OH DEAR GOD WHAT IS THAT SMELL I DON’T THINK IT’S THE LIONS. Editor’s note: It’s not the “lions...”

Aiden, being the overachiever that he was born to be, has outdone himself. And outdone the confines of his diaper. Everything that one would expect to find in the diaper of a baby beginning to eat solid food is there—just not IN the diaper.

It’s up his back. It’s out the sides, it’s quite possible even in his ears, but by that point I was beyond the ability to retain my powers of observation and was in full-blown crisis management mode.

I know I’ve said before that changing a diaper is a lot like riding a bike—your skills may have gotten rusty but it all comes back to you. What I should have said is “changing a baby is a lot like LEARNING to ride a bike—there will be wobbles and spills, some tears-- and somebody is bound to wind up with a band aid on their knee.” SPOILER ALERT: No babies where harmed in the recounting of this Diaper Event, nor the re-telling of. Only my pride got a little bruised.

At one point in the diaper change I had a super squishy baby, with the shoulders of his Onesie down around his mid-section, hovering somewhere between the changing table and the floor; wishing I had six more hands and/or the ability to cause small humans to levitate. I was also lamenting the nation-wide shortage of PPE, because at that moment I sure could have used an Ebola-proof haz-mat suit. And some salad tongs, possibly a garden hose.

Baby Toes!

Mercifully, most of the rest of that event remains a blur. It’s quite possible I put the Onesie in the garbage and the disposable diaper in the laundry, but you know what? It doesn’t really matter--Aiden still squeals and smiles when he sees me, my knee has healed nicely, his parents are still speaking to me and I’m sure it’s just coincidental timing that his mother quit her job to stay home and run a wedding consulting business with a baby on her hip. 

Probably.

Adventures In Sugar Land

     The other day I got to babysit my newest grandson, Baby Aiden, while his parents had to do Grown Up Stuff. I call him “baby” Aiden because I’m in denial about how BIG he’s gotten—five-almost-six- months old, 17 very solid pounds, and a little man hairdo; a serious hair do that makes him look like he’s ready for Baby’s First Briefcase.

   

Aiden and Millie, best of friends.

Aiden's parents went out to be Grownups, Aiden and I stayed home to hang out and play with his toys, and his doggie, and tell each other all kinds of nonsense-- it was great. I even got to feed him mangos and avocado baby food—because why even have a baby if you don’t get to put delicious stuff in his face? For the record, he thought the combination was delightful. I managed to refrain from licking the lid to the jar of baby food—something I always did when my kids were little, because I need to know if it tastes good before I expect them to eat it, right?

    There is a darker side to feeding a baby that time had mercifully blurred in my memory: in a bite of mango-avocado, out a diaperful of something more nefarious.

    Diaper changing is just like riding a bike—you might be a bit wobbly at first, but you get the job done. And diaper technology is light years a head of where it was 25 years ago, so that’s nice. Restickable Velcro-like tabs mean if you don’t get it right the first time you can try, try (try) again. And his parents even have a wipe-warmer, so that the wet wipes aren’t cold on his little tushie.

   Mission accomplished, Baby A and I went out to look at the Zoo. Ok, so maybe it’s not really a

Petting Zoo

zoo, maybe it’s an enclosed cat-patio his parents made for their two giant cats, but Aiden is young and impressionable and I like him thinking of Nana Sugar as Zoo Nana. “Oh, yes,” I’ll say to him, “when you were a baby I took you to the zoo all the time.”

  While we were watching the Big Cats, I became aware of something warm and squishy making its way up Aiden’s back...

To be continued