Look, I've already blogged more now that Maddie is here than I have during most of the months that I was pregnant. Truthfully, I feel amazingly more cognizant than I did than. When I was pregnant I kind of felt like I was in a daze, whereas now, though tired, my mind seems to actually be more in my body (as my friend Julie would say.) All of which is neither here nor there. I'm going to tell you all a story...
The other day my Mom and I were talking about my Grandma K. My grandmother was a very loving person, though she has caused me a great deal of puzzlement in recent years. I had an amazing relationship with my grandmother. My cousins however did not and seem to have a great deal of family angst towards her. If you took my recollections of Grandma and theirs, it would appear we were talking about two different people. The Grandma that I knew was the most kind and caring person. One of the things I remember most was laying my head in her lap and her playing with my hair. She used to walk her fingers across my forehead and narrate it by saying, "There was a little kitty, and he kittied and he kittied...." I now do this with Madeleine and it instantly calms her crying.
The first Sunday after my Mom married my Dad, my Dad told her he was going over to see his parents. My Mom said she would join him and so started a tradition of them always visiting my grandparents every Sunday. They were a close knit family -- no in-law required, just an extra set of parents for my Mom.
So here's the story: My Grandma used to be in charge of the family finances. When my Grandpa got paid, he would bring the money home and she would divvy it up into different band-aid boxes. A box for bills, a box for savings, etc... They never had a bank account until they retired and started getting social security. At that point my Dad convinced them to open a checking account. When Grandma got her first statement she asked my Dad to help her balance her account. While he was looking over everything he noticed that the signature on the checks didn't match my Grandpa's. When he asked my Grandma about it, she said she signed the checks. Dad told her that the bank might give them trouble for forged checks and Grandma told him that the bank had no clue what Grandpa's signature looked like because she had signed his signature card too.
I loved this story, simple as it is -- just because I like to imagine what Grandma was like as a business woman and how different their generation was from our own.
