The Mommy National Anthem

Last night, on a whim, I downloaded Roger Rosenblatt's Making Toast, his memoir of the first year after his daughter's death, when he and his wife moved in with his son-in-law to help raise his three young grandchildren.  It was 12:30 when I finally forced myself to stop reading, and a long while afterword that I stayed up thinking; I let myself devour the rest over breakfast. It's a beautiful book about handling grief and about raising children.

Rosenblatt's grandchildren call him "Boppo." He'd originally chosen as his grandparent name "El Gaupo," or "the Handsome One," but his first grandchild mercilessly shortened the name to Boppo when she started talking.

But he embraced the name, and played the clown for them. And, throughout the book, he led his grandchildren in singing the "Boppo National Anthem," which he promised was "an immediate success due to the composer's exuberance: Boppo the Great! / Boppo the Great! / I can't wait for Boppo the Great! / I hope he's not late!"

Roger Rosenblatt will have to forgive me for my hopeless plagiarism. But it's rather his fault: he's the one who kept me up late and left me with a foggy brain. Anyway, this morning, when the kids starting looking daggers at one another, I broke up the tension by hustling them to me, earnestly telling them that I had a very important song to teach them. "Mommy the Great!..."

The kids started giggling immediately (just as I had last night), and Alex (who I think may be my biggest fan) started singing along, heartily.  But it was Joey (traitorous Joey!) who started to rebel almost immediately, altering the sacred lyrics: "Mommy is a silly!"

And then it was all over. I kept telling the kids NO! Great! I am the Great one!  But they just laughed harder. And then they usurped my song, breaking into what they very unoriginally called the Kid's National Anthem, singing one another's praises. "Alex the Great!" Ella chanted, and then paused for the briefest of lectures. "See, mom, my song is better, because I'm not being vain." And then she nodded pointedly at Alex, who obediently started singing "Ella the Great!"

Mommy the Great had vague plans of taking the kids to a pumpkin patch today. Unfortunately, since Halloween is generally not celebrated in Switzerland, pumpkin patches are scarce, and the one that everyone seems to like best is over an hour's journey by train and foot.  I'd been aware of that problem for some time, and so, while we had the car last week, I'd tried to instigate pumpkin shopping in Germany: there was a little pumpkin patch very near our hotel in Wolfrathausen.  But our car's trunk was very full, and Alex objected to having pumpkins cramping his legs, so I had to resign myself to pumpkin shopping without a car.  We'll be getting smallish pumpkins this year, I think.

A shuttle to this particular pumpkin patch, which would relieve us of a 2-kilometer walk, only runs on Saturdays and Wednesday afternoons, so today was our best option for pumpkin shopping.  Except for the weather: after 10:00 AM, it rained steadily for the rest of the day.

Mommy the Great had to cancel her plans, so she looked to Blue and Steve, and also Phineas and Ferb, for back-up as we began a snuggley day of puzzles and trains and shrinky dinks.  I taught Ella to play cribbage (which made her feel grown up) and played Chutes and Ladders with Alex and Joey.

And that was all fun, but the best part of the day was our morning mail call. We got two heavy boxes in the mail from America.  One, from Dennis's family, had birthday gifts from Joey and homemade cookies and Reeses Peanut Butter Cups (which I had no idea how much I'd been missing!) and Thanksgiving decorations, and letters, and a certain Elf that Grandma Joani retrieved from our storage, who will live on our Shelf here in Zürich, since we've decided we're not coming home for Christmas time. Oh, and, just for me, mayonnaise.

And the second box was from my lovely roommate Kimmie, packed with love with the help of her little daughter: she sent a birthday gift for Joey, and, in an amazing display of forward thinking that is Kim's signature, Christmas presents. And also, with the incredible thoughtfulness that is also Kimmie's signature, a large pile of travel games for our train and bus rides, as well as some food stuffs I'd that mentioned, long ago, are impossible to find here. Chocolate chips, cinnamon...oh, and, just for me, Top Ramen.  I'm a simple girl.

Watching the kids paw through the booty and speculate on the gifts, I was reminded. I may be Great, but clearly it's only because I'm lucky enough to have the support of a whole flock of loved ones looking after and thinking of me and mine.

Thanks, guys!