Grandma Wivian

Most weekday mornings, Simon and I wake up and head off to spend a few hours with my Grandma Vivian (or "Wivian" if you ask the boy). Now before you think I'm this wonderful person, I feel obligated to say that this is actually a paid gig. Grandma Vivian (GV) suffered a stroke many years ago which caused major short term memory loss. Ask her about her childhood and she'll tell you all about it with relative accuracy as far as I can tell, but ask what she ate for breakfast and she'll probably have no idea. To complicate matters, she is diabetic. This is where I come in. In short, she needs someone to remind her to check her blood sugars and to make sure she gets the right amount of insulin and eats appropriately. Before me there was a company that was hired to do this job, hence, it is a paid gig. Okay, NOW you can think about how wonderful I am :)

Anyways.

Sometimes we venture out into the world between breakfast and lunch, and since I had a 30% off (yay!) at Kohl's it seemed like the perfect place for our destination de jour. It started out fine, but Simon insisted on walking rather than riding in the cart. I explained that he had to stay next to me otherwise in the cart he would go. Immediately he wandered off...not off to a good start. I decided to explain the rules one more time in the spirit of second chances. We walked over to the shoe section, but he was too distracted by the character sneakers to cooperatively try on the boring clearance skater shoes I had my eye on. A meltdown was imminent.

As I'm desperately trying to reason with him to keep his act together, I hear two women talking in the aisle over. From their conversation, I could discern that their kids were going to be in the same preschool class that Simon will be in next year. Great! Time to put on my friendly hat and introduce myself....

Simon had other plans.

He was literally laying on the floor shoeless, writhing and starting to cry (why, I really have no idea). No, now was not the time to let these unassuming mothers know that a freaking nut job was going to be disrupting their perfect little child's class in a few short months.

So in the cart he went. Well, in the cart I forced a stiff-bodied-screaming-hot-mess. We went on the hunt for GV so we could get the hell out of dodge. We started doing laps to try to find her. Let me just say that it is a challenge to find a woman who is 4'11" on her best day and whose hair has the same old lady look as 90% of the other shoppers at Kohl's at 10:30 on a Thursday morning. Where WAS she and why won't this kid SHUT UP?! Yes, his tantrum was still in full force and was showing no signs of stopping after a good three laps. {I guess I was "that mom" who wasn't about to ditch her cart because her kid was being difficult. Seriously, how would anyone EVER finish a shopping trip if this crappy advice was strictly adhered to? No mom with a headstrong child could have come up with that gem.} After what felt like an eternity, I found both silence and GV. Hallelujah. Let's go.

Getting out of the store with GV always serves as a challenge. She gets distracted very easily and forgets that we are in something of a hurry. Simon was starting to lose himself again, but it was GV to the rescue. Having had 10 kids she knows what works on crabby toddlers. A good bribe. She promised him a "prize" when we got to the car if he was a good boy. So he was a perfect angel until we got into the car and out came a mini Milky Way from GVs pocket. He was happy. She was happy. I was happy.

I know this was a more lengthy post than usual, but these days with GV aren't going to last forever. This was just one detailed account of just one our adventures, but hopefully it will serve as a good reminder of our time with her. I wish I had a good picture of the two of them...that will by my mission for tomorrow.