Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Elizabeth and Bean


I started the morning banging around in the proverbial paper bag.
Well, more like thrashing. Wildly. This sent my husband to his office earlier than usual. One might use the word, scurry, to describe his exit.

After a second cup of tea and some world-class sighing, I went to get my three year old grandaughter, Elizabeth. We spend Wednesday mornings together. This has proven to be w
ay cheaper than a therapist, trust me.

Our first stop was the Dunkin Donuts drive-through. I splurged and got her three chocolate-glazed munchkins. The kid is happy with three. All for a whopping sixty-four cents. Next we hit the library where we played with farm animal puzzles and those things with the beads that slide over the twisty wire. She sat in the blue chair. It's her favorite color. We didn't read a thing. A little boy in brown corduroys kept walking over to us with a book in his hand.
"Book?" he'd say.
Elizabeth didn't give him the time of day.

After the puzzles, we climbed the big staircase to look for some books for me because we always do that. Elizabeth loves climbing the big staircase. Just for the record, I steered clear of the self-help section even though I was still feeling oddly desperate. Every now and then she'd lift her arm up to show me the rubber band hanging loosely around her wrist.
"Look Bean."
That's what she calls me. Bean.
So I marveled at her rubber band and her grin, and the way her pink boots clunked along the ground when she walked. And then I wondered why I was such a
banging around in the paper bag kinda girl when obviously all I needed was a good rubber band to kick my moody middle-aged blues to the curb.

The bad news is her rubber band snapped when I was buckling her into the car seat. The good news is that I keep a small stash of rubber bands in my silverware drawer.

The minute we walked in the door Elizabeth said," Rubber band in drawer, Bean. Please."
Sure enough, nestled in near the teaspoons we found a pretty purple one, thicker and sturdier than her first one. I know this is way overused to say
her face lit up, but it did. It lit right up when I slipped that rubber band on her wrist.

So here was the moment:

Elizabeth, daughter of my daughter, and me, her Bean, standing in the kitchen grinning at each other over a purple rubber band.

Simple, right?




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