Found a Peanut

I have the place in the family that is usually reserved for dogs. You know the old trope about people hitting one another, until the lowest person on the totem can only kick  the dog? Well that is the spot reserved for me by Hebe.

Here is my side of the story.

Her snow coat knocked a large toy out of a basket. I was nearby and I got the aftermath of her sudden resentment. “Why did you do that. I am so mad at you. Your are the worst grandmother ever.”

Earlier in the morning, I heard her tell Catherine, “You are the worst mother ever, and I am going to kick grandmother”. I hold the sacred place for others. But for her, I am the place to vent when the world goes wrong. She is mad at her mother? She threatens to kick me.

This morning I woke up, wondering what I could do to rope her in, as it were. Make some kind of loving impact. What I was doing wasn’t working. While she was eating breakfast and I was doing dishes, I was hearing again that I am the worst grandmother ever. (Lest my reader worry, I am laughing so hard inside when she is doing this, for she is telling me exactly what is going on in her mind, which may or may not look like my reality.)

I told her she is correct, the I am a dumb grandmother, -- except that a few of my grandchildren really like me. She was silent for a moment. Probably dumbfounded. I went on, “Duncan really likes going to shows with me. Alex always says ‘Hi Grandmother’. Ceilidh has her folks go home to St. Albert and she stays alone at the lake with me for 10 days. Ceilidh and I spend all of our time wrapping wire around beautiful rocks to make them into jewellery.” I was laying on love with all of my might and then to make a mighty switch I thought I would see if she would let me sing to her.

Catherine was in the room at the same time, looking for crystalized ginger for the Triple Ginger Cookies I am going to make. All she could find was a box full of Chinese treats – hot peanuts, marinated plums (mostly pits and wrinkled skin), and outdated vacuum packed jumbo nuts. I was pulling them out of the garbage and testing them, as fast as she could put them in. (They were in plastic packages.) Catherine was warning me that I might get poisoned. At the same time, I was fascinated by the new flavours and began to sing, “Found a peanut …”

Hebe was captivated by every verse that kept mounting, all the way to died anyway, went to heaven, wouldn’t take me, and went the other way ….

Then I had to ask Catherine if Hebe knew the difference between heaven and hell. But that is not really what I wanted to know. What was really interesting me was if I could keep her enthralled for some length of time and if so, how long. And I was also testing to see if I could keep her from saying “You are the worst grandmother ever, I hate you and I am going to kiil you.”

I know how to translate those words. They mean, oh I am surprised that you are in my space, and further to your presence, you are also speaking and so bothering the lovely silence I am enjoying, and I can get rid of you if I say something that will surprise and shock all of the people around me. I love translating that for her. Catherine is a master at reframing what Hebe says so that it sounds meaningful to people around her.

But Hebe doesn’t always like having her words changed. One time she got mad, gave us a tirade, and at the end of it looked her mother right in the eye and said, “And no translating.” I loved that. I can’t help laughing. Belly laughs. Like Hebe’s bad words, my laughs are out before I know it. Catherine has told me not to laugh for it raises the level of Hebe’s ire.

Anyone with suggestions for stopping automatic belly laughs?

Arta