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I had plans of spending my day working on the romance novel I’ve been writing. I need to pull about 5 pages from it to read at the Indy Writers Group meeting Monday night. Ten minutes after I sat at the computer my phone rings. It is my 6 year old granddaughter, Jas. “Gwanma” she says, “I’m calling you from my new cell phone!” She went on to describe the wonderful attributes of her cell phone her daddy (my idiot son) had bought her for Easter. (I could go on and on about how a six year old does not need a cell phone and how my son has rocks for brains, but why raise my blood pressure.) After she hangs up I go back to writing. Five minutes later Jas calls again. “Gwanma can I come over and do crafts?” I reluctantly bid adieu to my laptop for the day and picked her up. After a productive trip to Hobby Lobby we spent the afternoon making this wonderful snow globe. First we had to sculpt the animals and flowers in it from clay. Then you fill the globe full of water, pour sprinkles in it and screw the base on it. Success! After the snow globe came the colored sand project. I’ll be sweeping bits of colored sand out of my kitchen for months. It was worth it though to see the happy, somewhat toothless, smile on her face. The crafting gene has definitely been passed down to my granddaughter.


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After our crafting session Jas informs me that she is hungry and would like to go to our favorite Chinese barfette for dinner. Not a problem. It was after all, Thursday night, which is normally girls night out. While we are munching on general Tso’s chicken and egg rolls she tells me that she wants to spend the night. I have no problem with that so I said okay. Then she proceeds to call her mother and tell her that she is staying with me until 3PM tomorrow. Why 3Pm I don’t know. But as I sit here at 10:30 PM finally getting back to my laptop now that she has fallen asleep I am silently groaning. Why? Because I have spent the last eight hours playing Go fish, Old Maid, making cinnamon rolls, doing crafts, cleaning up sand, playing with an electronic dog (don’t ask), going to Walmart and countless other things I can’t remember. If I have to spend all day tomorrow playing I just may be insane by the time 3PM rolls around. I am exhausted just thinking about all we did today. I don’t know how mothers today do it. Heck, I don’t know how I did it all those years ago. Sometimes being a Gwanma is exhausting!