As you know, my daughter is planning to punch out a kidlet soon. It will be the first grandchild. And while I have had some issues with being old enough to be a grandfather, I think it pales in comparison what someone else (who shall go nameless) is having with the idea.
You see, the Janmeister (oops, guess I named her anyway) long ago decided that she desperately wanted to be a grandma. While the idea of grandparenthood was never on my horizon, the Janmeister hoped, and yes dreamed, that she would one day have a little moppet to bounce around on her knee and spoil rotten.
Well, it hasn’t happened in her family – yet. And though she continues to hold out hope, I slipped in ahead of her in the grandparent line somehow.
I don’t really see the difference here. I know that we aren’t technically hitched according to the law, but we’ve been in a relationship for going on three years now and hey, I asked her to move to Seattle.
That to me is better than a piece of paper. It’s the “hey, I would like to take you with me and continue our journey” thing, rather than “damn, we have this piece of paper I guess you have to come along” kind of arrangement.
But Jan’s having a little trouble accepting the fact that Moppet A (as we know not whether or not it will be a boy or a girl, so ‘A’ will have to suffice), isn’t going to really understand the finer points of the legal system in our state come October.
As Moppet A continue to grow up, s/he is going to come see Captain and Teneille, uh, Janma. S/he is going to see what appears to be an older male figure who is the father of her mother and another older female figure who must be related somehow.
Now, I suppose I could pull out an org chart and show a broken line between Janma and I and then move on to explain that relationships aren’t all about a piece of paper and that some people who have not tied the proverbial knot are actually a lot happier than some that did, who now live in loveless marriages that are no better than shacking up with a total stranger who kicks in rent each month, but is otherwise, emotionally bankrupt.
Taking a breath here – long sentence.
I think an org chart is pretty pointless, as even those in the corporate world can’t seem to understand them. So why would they with a family.
Of course, I have to chide Janma a bit. I have already run through the scenarios of said Moppet’s first visit once words have begun slipping out of that little Moppet mouth of his or hers.
“Janma,” Moppet will say, arms spread wide open while in a dead run. “Janma!”
And the Janmeister will reach out to the Moppet, sweet him/her into her arms and whisper in his/her ear, “I’m not your Janma. Captain hasn’t married me.”
“Oh, and by the way, there’s no Santa either.”
Why not destroy two illusions at once and save the kid some time in therapy.
Now, the Janmeister would never say such a thing. I was just trying to make a point here.
To this day I don’t know if my grandma and grandpa were actually married. I never saw a marriage license. Sure, they had a photo of the two of them on the wall that looked like a wedding. But it was in sepia, and as we all know, you can get one of those photos made in any tourist town in one of those period photo stores where you get to dress up as a saloon girl, a sheriff or yes, even a bride.
I guess I just assumed they were married. But now I wonder. Yes, it was a different time and age. People felt an obligation to marry and live happily never after. Certainly my parents were up for it. Wait, that proved they were married because no one in their right mind would stay in a loveless marriage. Check that, I know people. I think one of them was even me a time or two or three.
I can hardly wait for the little Moppet to start talking. That will be the day. While the Janmeister can’t wait to spoil said Moppet and love him/her to death, it will be that day when “Janma” spills that her heart of hers and it will melt all over the floor, and I will have to surrender the security deposit because who will ever be able to get melted heart out of carpet.
This will make my day. For I know that Janma will no longer fret about not having a grandchild of her own. She will have one. DNA doesn’t matter to a little kid. It doesn’t matter to me either. Frankly, I don’t know whether I should send the Moppet a Welcome to this World card or one expressing Sympathy over the fact that s/he is now cursed with the Zerr genes.
Thankfully, like bleach, they will be diluted quite a bit and it will only be an eighth Zerr, as far as I can reckon. I originally thought a quarter, but that would require my mother and father to be from West Virginia. That kind of thing was illegal in South Dakota, at least until recently.
And maybe, someday in the distant future, the Janmeister will finally have one of her own. No, not a child. That ship has indeed sailed. But she has three great kids and one of them is almost certain to have a case of the hornies and someone will end up with a bun in the oven as a result.
I look forward to that day, too. The day when I can sweep the little Moppet B into my arms and say, “I’m not really your Captain. And there’s no Easter Bunny, kid. Muahahaha!
In the Emerald City, having a grand time,
– Robb