Excuses, Excuses

I’m about to do something I would have chastised my own children or students for doing;  I’m making excuses for why I didn’t complete something on time.  I should have had this column written last Friday, an admittedly self-imposed deadline. In no particular order, here are two excuses. I’m paraphrasing the Providence Journal’s truth-o-meter to rate my own reasons for procrastination. Feel free to re-rate them based on your own perceptions of my lame rationalizations.

• I’m spending a lot of time babysitting my grandchildren, and everyone knows you can’t get anything done requiring sustained attention when you have a two and four year old around.

This one I’ll rate as kinda, sorta true. My grandchildren do consume a lot of my attention, and I love every second I spend reading "Curious George." We are spending many hours around water, and I do a second-by-second head count, even when the kids are right on front of me. My daughter, their mother, is cautious and responsible, but is quick to point out to me, “they’re fine, mom” every time I become a little too neurotic. I should also point out that I am rarely their only caretaker, as we often have grandpa, daddy, auntie and her boyfriend with us. This has caused me to declare that the perfect child care ratio is three adults for every child. You need one whose full-time assignment is just getting them in and out of carseats and folding these new sport utility strollers.

• There was a power outage over the weekend and it knocked out the modem at my daughter’s house where I am staying. Then we went to a part of North Carolina with spotty internet service.

This gets a puh-leeze…you know the power was back on in a few hours and how stupid do you think people are who believe there is no wifi in the Outer Banks. Well, wait! The power did go out. I am in North Carolina where they really do get these monster thunderstorms in the late afternoon. The cable modem was knocked off. But, truth be told…I had barely started writing.  My iPhone still had power, though, so I had more time to post pictures of my grandchildren on Facebook. As for our trip to the Outer Banks, let me start by saying I was initially balking at the idea of “driving four hours to get to a beach when we have them 20 minutes from home in Rhode Island.” 

North Carolina is always on lists of states with huge population growth; there are, however, some creepy, Stephen Kingish and X-Files type deserted roads with no exits for 20 miles with barbed wire along the side to keep bears and alligators away from coastal-bound motorists. (I’m actually not making that part up.) So, truth be told, there is no internet service along these desolate stretches of US Route 64, but I wasn’t trying to write in the car. Once you get to the Outer Banks, it’s as populated as Newport or Fort Lauderdale. Of course there’s internet. Let me say, for all of my initial eyeball-rolling and naysaying, it’s worth the trip. It truly is a combination of the best coastal areas of New England and Florida, complete with cheesy tourist attractions like all-you-can-eat seafood buffets, t-shirt shops and mini-golf.  

I was lucky enough to have a sister who rented a house on the beach with three other families in a town called Corolla. We spent the day at the beach and watched pelicans fly over us while we swam in tropically warm water. I mentioned to my kids that we should really get out of the water before dusk, as my extensive research on the Discovery Channel informed me it was the preferred feeding time for sharks. I could hear eyeballs rolling.

So, yes I am enjoying my summer vacation. I get a lot of “must be nice being a teacher and having the summer off.” In my younger days, I used to get a little huffy and indignant with people, and think of ways I could convince them how hard I work and how they should try doingmy job.

Funny how age mellows you out. Now my feeling is yes, I work hard, but so does everyone else. The summer vacation is wonderful, and I am supremely grateful to have a job I enjoy, especially when so many people don’t have a job at all. It allows me to spend a significant amount of time with my kids and grandkids. In case I sounded a little snooty earlier, I was the one who organized the family outing to the mini-golf park.

So I guess mellowing out and becoming a grandparent happen at around the same time, or at least they did for me. While I am more hyper-vigilant about safety, I find temper tantrums charming. Writing on a newly painted wall? C’mon, isn’t that what the Mr. Clean Eraser is for?  Now that I’m a grandma, I really do know that they grow up quickly. I honestly didn’t believe it the first time around.

As I close out this column, I will immediately start my next one. It’s based on an email I received from a guy with whom I graduated from high school. It clearly wasn’t intended for me; it was obviously one of those situations in which the intended recipient was the person before or after me in his address book. Stay tuned.