“I put my infant on a schedule.”
How many times have I heard young mothers make this statement. And my response is usually filled with deep compassion as I chuckle under my breath, “Good luck with that!” So, what’s wrong with a schedule?… you may ask, (please ask or I will be writing this blog just to hear my fingers click against the keys.
Firstly, let’s look at what SCHEDULE means: To put one’s day to day activities on a time table. Or, arrange or plan an event to take place at a particular time…according to the clock!
Ladies, our babies were not born with an embedded timer.
Juju. It's a name given to me by toddlers who couldn't pronounce "Judy". It's a name. Not a belief, not a practice of witchcraft, or voodoo. It's a name...that stuck. I am Juju. I am a grandma. And when I became a grandma I didn't feel worthy of grandma status. Grandmas have gray hair. Grandmas have facial hair. Grandmas wear corsets, and braziers, and have false teeth. Grandmas are awesome! So all my grandkids, and many others who love me, now refer to me as Juju. I am Juju, and there's nothing that warms my soul quite like hearing that.
When my eldest grandchild, Reese, was 4 years old I remember the day we were attempting to explain to him the family structure. "I am your Mommy's mommy", I said. "That makes me your grandma".
"No!" he rebutted, "I don't have a grandma, I have a Juju!" He is 9 now, and I recently heard him explaining the family structure to the youngest members of our clan, "she's Juju, but she really is our grandma."
As quaint as this may be, to me it brings up the dilemma of aging. Aging when you aren't really ready for it. Aging into "grandma". Aging into a body that surely must belong to someone else... unfamiliar, awkward, baggy, saggy, uncooperative, with weird hair and spotted skin, other-worldly moans and groans, and strange noises from the digestive tract. Just-yesterday-I was-30 kind of madness, and now 5 not so little offspring of my offspring call me Their Juju! Yikes! How did this happen so fast?! Why does it feel like I skipped ahead, spacing out an entire eon of my life? What happened to my dreams? My bucket list? The things God promised me? (I have a dream book, you know.)
