One of the great things about being a grandmother is you have a free license to unabashedly spoil their grandkids. Whether it be with toys or love, they get away with bestowing pretty much everything they can onto their grandkids and leave the parents to deal with the children’s inevitable withdrawal later that evening.
Sophia and I drove from my cousin’s house in Jersey to meet my mom at her usual Saturday brunch at 107 West only a block away from her Upper West Side apartment. She had been there a while when we arrived. It took Sophia a few seconds to recognize her grandmother, but when she did, she ran through the foyer to give her a big hug. Since she’d already been there, she already ate. This was the breakfast I should have had before jumping into the car so I was happy to eat anything. Sophia was a different story. I was hoping to have her eat healthy since the night before we took longer to get into Jersey than I thought, and wound up at the Vince Lombardi service station off of 95 South to take in some Nathan’s hot dogs and fries. It was needed at the time, although I admit it was good to introduce Sophia to the best tasting fries ever. Still we need to keep her diet adjusted and her weight steady. However Sophia wasn’t interested in healthy. She didn’t want the fruit or yogurt offering they had, which she usually is into. Mom asked and ordered the kid’s chicken tenders and fries for her instead. I had the Scottish eggs Benedict (salmon instead of Canadian bacon). After watching Sophia eat an entire plate of fries while draining half a six-ounce bottle of ketchup, mom told her waitress friend at the bar to invest in Heinz.
Since my mom was going to miss Sophia’s birthday in December (I wouldn’t be coming down again with her until January at the earliest), my mom told Sophia that she was taking her on a “birthday present walk” up Broadway to buy her some toys. Mom grilled Sophia (and me) on what she liked best. We sort of focused on stuffed animals, which I give her in droves. When we got to the kids’ store about 4 blocks up, I remembered that she also loves Littlest Pet Shop toys. Her aunt gave her a few of them and she loves them a lot. I of course remembered this right after seeing Sophia drooling over one of the pet packs. After a lot of negotiating, Sophia settled on a hospital and a bathtub Pet Shop pack, and a Wishbear Care Bear.
We took the bus back to mom’s apartment because Sophia said she didn’t want to walk the whole six blocks back. She could have but she wasn’t in the mood to. Sophia played with her Pet Shop packs on the open futon couch while I had to set up mom’s fax machine with help from a friend of hers on the cell phone talking me through it. It’s one of the unwritten benefits of your son coming in from out of town; they have to help with putting together electronics, taking out garbage and killing insects while over there. Mom was apparently exhausted from my Dad’s stay the night before. He kept her up most of the night with his being on the retired Puerto Rican timetable (up at 6:00 am in bed by 10:00 pm at the latest) but also by over-organizing his schedule for the next couple of days and reminding her about it. There’s a reason they divorced. Having Sophia around was relatively tame by comparison. It even gave her a chance to recharge a bit. Sophia played with her dolls, got both mom and I involved in a game of “I Spy” with stuff around the apartment and generally being her own five year old self.
As it has been generally a strange experience being a father, it was equally so having my daughter and mom in the same room. First of all I never knew how to refer to my own mother. I kept calling her mom when talking to Sophia, but she was Sophia’s grandmother so I had to immediately correct myself. Each time I did that, the more confused I got as to what to call anyone. The other big thing is that concerning her children, my mother is a mini-archivist. She still has many of the art projects we’ve done over the years from kindergarten to grade school. The handmade mock banjo I made out of a block of wood, nails and yarn when I was a huge Pete Seeger fan at the age of five, the one I used to give “concerts” with in the nursery, hangs prominently in the hallway entrance to her apartment. A picture of a clock made with various pebbles and glitter collaged together on a wooden board that I made in kindergarten hangs on the wall in the living room (I dispute that I did it all by myself—the numbers on the clock face look more like my dad’s hand than mine—but she says it was all me). Somewhere on the bookshelves with the tonnage of books she collected over the years, I know there is an autobiography of mine written in fourth grade. So it should have been no surprise that she was easily able to pull out a photo album with a bunch of pictures of me as a toddler. As usual, I’m embarrassed to look at those photos of me as a kid. This time was a much different reaction. I knew Sophia always looked like me, but to see me at almost the same age she was really a shock. Certain shots I could look back and forth between the photo of me and Sophia and not be able to tell the difference. My mom said that Marie (her lifelong friend and my de facto godmother) said that Sophia couldn’t be more like me if she was cloned. It was surreal to look at me as a child and see my daughter instead. I also got a little sad about it as well. I’ve said the past that I was a much braver child at six than I am now. I had no problem telling a story into a tape recorder complete with sound effects and imitations. Now I struggle to put more than a sentence on a page. I’m still not sure I can recapture that again, but I would like to make sure that Sophia never loses it like I did.
Many “I Spy” games later, we took a walk to VT’s, a famous Upper West Side Italian restaurant well known for its pizza. I remember it more for several family dinners there with my mom and occasionally my dad, including a few with the whole immediate family after a group therapy session at the nearby Roosevelt Hospital. We got a table rather quickly despite the place being pretty full up. The main congestion was due to a kids’ soccer team celebration with coaches and parents. As is custom with Upper West Side Manhattan family group meals, the kids had their own table where they usually laughed, screamed to talk each other and generally annoyed the other patrons; the parents and other adults sat at their own table trying to be oblivious to all the noise around them (or at least ignoring all of it), engaged in civil conversation over coffee in their own group cone of silence. Luckily their party dispersed partway through our bread course. We all enjoyed our time together over our family style Italian meals and made small talk with Sophia as she played more “I Spy” using shapes around the room (paintings, decor, etc).
Later I drove mom back to her apartment before heading back to Jersey. Sophia insisted that her grandma sit in the back seat with her. It meant moving the passenger seat much further forwards, but it was more bonding time between grandmother and granddaughter. My mom told me that when I went looking for a new parking spot earlier that day, Sophia told her that she thought she was awesome. I do admit, she has her moments.