Nappy Diaries
Created | Updated Jun 15, 2006
The baby marked his first birthday a few weeks ago. Wow! A year already! Where did it go?
So, just like I had done for broe jr, we invited the family out for barbecue to celebrate the fact that we had survived the year that had included sleepless nights, projectile vomiting, culinary rejection and countless doctor visits. Don't get me wrong, this year has had its share of victories as well — lots of smiley baby pictures (SuperChunk will automatically smile when you point a camera at him, no matter the severity of the tantrum he's involved in at the time); he blows kisses with the most adorable 'mwaaah' sound and there's the incessant mantra of 'da da da da da da da. DA!'
In preparation for the 'cue, we discovered that our last iced-tea pitcher had cracked and we needed to buy another. It seems they change the design of the tea-maker every other year, so inevitably the pitchers aren't interchangable with different models of makers and of course you can't just buy the pitchers. (You can order them, but who plans far enough ahead for that?) So it's coming down to the wire and I haven't replaced the iced-tea maker.
Some models of the tea-maker have come with two pitchers, which is handy for always having one clean even when the other is in the wash. Visits to several local stores yielded no models with multiple pitchers. The last stop on my search was the Evil Empire1, where I only shop in the most dire of emergencies. They didn't have a tea-maker with two pitchers, but I must have found something that seemed like an emergency at the time because I ended up in the check-out line before I left.
The cashier was a seemingly pleasant lady in what I judged to be her mid- to late-fifties. She fawned over Chunk, saying how beautiful he is and what gorgeous blue eyes and then went into the spiel about her own grandchildren and how old they were and how much fun grandchildren were. Then she dropped the bomb.
'Is he your grandson?'
'Umm, well, no, he's my son.'
I'M THIRTY-FIVE YEARS OLD! I gave the only answer I could, of course, but by the time I got to my car in the parking lot I was pretty well steaming. Grandson!? Huh! Do I really look that old? Maybe they're just used to seeing a lot of pregnant teenagers in that part of town and I fit into the local 'grandmother demographic'.
My sister, who is only two years younger (with more gray hair) and is pregnant with her first child, is the only person to whom I've told this story that showed the proper outrage. Not even my mother could relate to the possiblity that someone could ask her if I was her grandchild.
Not normally prone to a beauty regimen, I've been pretty religious about moisturiser and eye cream and wrinkle eraser for the past couple of months, now.
And it's just possible that it's paying off.
I gave up on hosting birthday parties for my older son years ago, when I tired of my in-laws trying to out-gift everyone else in the family. This year, broe jr's birthday coincided with the visit of an out-of-town aunt, so we decided to give it another try, sans in-laws.
It's shopping time again, and since it's a much lower-key affair, we're just going to go with the basics: food and cake. Chunk and I are breezing through the grocery store trying to remember all of the things we need, because I can never be bothered to write a list. Hamburger, check. Bratwurst, check. Beans, check. Beer (for the brats, junior's still a minor), check.
At the check-out lane, the cashier, a nice lady in probably her early fifties, smiles at the baby and talks to him while scanning my groceries. I'm getting into my wallet for my bank card at just the same time she's scanning the beer.
'Can I see some ID?'
It always aggravates me when people ask for my ID when I use my card. My card is signed, I shouldn't have to show ID as well, but I've resigned myself to the fact that there are some cashiers that just don't get this and other stores where it's policy regardless of whether your card is signed or not. That's when I looked up and saw the beer.
'What... you're carding me for the beer?' I asked, incredulously. Not outraged, just surprised.
'Yes, please.'
Woohoo! 'Certainly you can see my ID!' I didn't even tell her to ignore the horribly splotchy pregnant picture.
YES!!
Take that, Evil Empire grandma!
