I was asked to pick up Reese for preschool yesterday, and am ready to be on task for her mama most days of the week now that I am home.
I get to the school early so I take a walk around the church feeling like I usually do in a church lately... *out of touch* as though the memory is there but something is missing. I'm thinking that it might be that guilty feeling I used to get that Jesus was watching me and that I was screwing up morally in some way. I took two rounds circling the vestibule and then back through the school having promised myself to start moving more often than sitting on my tush. I passed many young mothers and wonder where the years had gone knowing I look like one of the Nanas.
I stand there at the door to the classroom next to the other Nana who happened to have shown up for the same reason. I begin to notice that amidst these young mothers that I am now the "hot Nana" since the other "grandma" is underneath something that looked like an outerwear housecoat from The Vermont Country Store with practical Sketchers that I wouldn't be caught wearing to retrieve my morning mail. No makeup. We glance at one another which makes me feel even hotter because she is gazing at me with suspicious eyeballs underneath half-closed lids. As she removes her old lady gloves, her hands look ancient as though she had been in the garden for days at a time without sunscreen. I find myself reevaluating my face in the reflection of some Christian wall poster of Jesus to make sure that I wasn't delusional in contemplating my hotness. Though my comparison to the farmer Nana was pathetic in nature it kind of made me have a little hop in my step as I stood there in my skinny jeans and funky-ass earrings. I am, without a doubt, in this particular circumstance; juxtaposed as it may be... hot.
The teacher comes to the door asking if anyone is here for Reese. I raise my hand sheepishly still channeling the Jesus guilt I had felt only moments before. Apparently, Reese had had a little "skirmish" with another girl. My sweet baby had been popped in the nose on the playground by a little "suburban hooligan" named Katie. Teacher says Reese is devastated but is holding it in emotionally and that I should be "prepared." I walk to the door covered with Turtle preschool names like Tate, Truman, Mikah, Maude, and Penelopea. Whatever.
"Reese, your grandma is here." I hate that damn word, which says a lot about my fear of this stage in my life.
My baby bolts towards me and her cry is visceral, almost animal-like in her horror and subsequent release. "It was awwwwwwful, Non."
My initial reaction was to find the little bitch and pop her one back, only to realize that she was (uh) four-years-old as well and so it would be (just) wrong. Reese asked me to carry her back to the car and, feeling strong still from years of weight training, I was up to the challenge. Yes, hot Nana may have a pot-belly and recovering from chemo but, damn it, she is strong as a bull shark on amphetamines. Reese and I were laughing as we got to the car since I still have it in the silly dept. A little bribery of some cocoa from Starbucks and a visit to Best Buy for Barbie Musketeers makes her forget about the shiner that was beginning to form in her left eye socket. Reese is not so big on the cocoa and didn't drink it (at all) but chatters for at least twenty minutes about the "real" mini Starbucks coffee cup with the "real" little hole in the top of the lid.
Immmpressive.
After spoiling her twice I have created a stinkin' monster and she is asking now for everything that isn't tied down. "After we buy the movie, let's go to the movie theatre for a 3D movie, Non, and thennnn we can go to Chic-fil-a for nuggets, and thennn we can go for Dunkin' Donuts, and thennnn I can spend the night."
After two hours of this I realize that I have been had and we try very hard to get back to any remote form of normalcy... that is, (uh) after eating the Chick-fil-a, planning the 3D movie... and buying the donuts for the morning since she is now spending the night at my house. This, of course is apres the Barbie film (if you choose to consider it a 'film' at all).
How can I turn down this face?
Reese (attorney at large)
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