By Micki Bare
It has been a challenging year. My family’s world has been picked up, shaken and turned upside down. It will take a year or two for the dust to settle. In the meantime, day by day, we continue to breathe.
We also continue to forge new paths and merge lives — and habits and traditions — as we take three generations of “us” and transition to one household.
In the throws of heart-wrenching change, combining forces and resources seemed a natural and simple solution. In the throws of reality, the journey is not quite what I expected.
Being the overprotective, deeply involved and concerned mother, I assumed the transition would be extremely difficult for my teenagers and next to impossible for Ma. Oh how I missed the mark.
That’s not to say the transition has been all roses and chocolate bars. I just never considered the perks of having your grandma down the hallway. Take cash for example. Not that I have any to give out — which is pretty much the issue first thing in the morning. It used to go down like this: Family rushes out door after breakfast.
Child asks for cash, because today is the LAST day to turn in the $3 fee for the field trip. Mother laughs and choking on coffee states for the billionth time that she has no cash on her, and then sarcastically adds, do you take a debit card?
Now, my children ask earlier. Not a week or few days earlier, but rather before we head out the door and within earshot of their grandma. Before I get to my sarcastic remark, Ma is opening her wallet and asking how much her deprived grandchild needs. I get a quick glance that I interpret as: You really should be more prepared to meet the financial needs of your children.
As I sit in my office, hiding from my entire family so I can attempt to think straight, I reevaluate the situation. Now that we’re all together, I need to learn to keep cash on hand. Ma needs to learn to use a debit card. We all need to practice saying no to the boys, especially if they are asking at the last minute.
Television viewing habits are dramatically different. And while we do have multiple television sets, we like to sit down as a family, munch on popcorn and catch up on our favorite shows. Ma has her own favorite shows.
There is little overlap other than Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy, which is something we all watched together during Dad’s illness.
Having a DVR is wonderful. But we’ve discovered that it does have its limitations. We already record two different shows at 9 p.m. Monday. Ma’s show also airs at 9 p.m. Monday.
The DVR can only record two shows at a time. Hubby is getting quite proficient at finding encore presentations and programming the DVR.
Unfortunately, the DVR has a limited memory. Is there an external drive that can be attached to the DVR so we can record all the mind-numbing television our multi-generational family needs?
What I never expected is that Ma is getting hooked on a few of our favorites. She is also exposing us to things we wouldn’t have chosen, but aren’t that bad.
My children are also bonding with their grandma through technology. After noting that she finally understands why the boys have MP3 players growing out of their ears — something about tuning out “the parents” — they gave her some tips on using hers. Until now, her MP3 player was hardly touched. I’m thinking she’ll want to upgrade in January.
Meals are another hot issue. We used to be more diligent about planning and creating family meals. But in the chaos of raising children compiled with the challenges of the past couple of years, we’ve severely strayed from our old meal habits.
Meanwhile, Ma put her foot down and stated point blank, “I cannot eat pizza four times in one week. It’s just NOT healthy.”
So, we are intentionally working toward a healthier routine for mealtimes. Ma offered to cook one meal each week. We are getting back into the habit of enforcing the rule about everyone but the cook must clean up. We do still have pizza, but only once a week and it’s homemade.
And while there will be lots of gifts under the tree for unwrapping, I’ve come to realize that we already received the most precious gifts.
We have been through a lot, but we have each other. And while having each other under one roof day in and day out can be a challenge at times, it is always a blessing. We are richer and wiser, healthier and happier for the time we have under each other’s feet.
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Micki Bare is a columnist for the Arkansas News Bureau and the Courier-Tribune in Asheboro, N.C., and author of the book, “Relative Expressions.” She lives in Asheboro with her husband and three children. Her e-mail address is mickibare@inspiredscribe.com.
