Nana Abuse

I know you can go to jail for child abuse...do the same rules apply to Nana abuse?

My mom has been the best sport since Brig was born. Always ready and eager to help out. Two times in particular she really went above and beyond the call of duty.

On Saturday Dave and I left Brig for the first time to attend a wedding and Nana offered to babysit. My mom left her house around 4:00pm to come to Denver, and we didn't get back from the wedding until 9:30pm. When I asked her how things went she said "Oh, they were great! Brig was happy almost the whole time you were gone...and, I ate a little bit of your hummus - I hope that is OK."

FOOD! It dawned on me we had absolutely NO FOOD in the house for my mom to eat. I said, "Oh my gosh. I totally forgot about feeding you dinner! What on earth did you eat, I'm so sorry!" She said, "Well, I found a bag of chips but there were only crumbs left. So I ate the crumbs, and a couple spoonfuls of hummus. Oh, and I found a Luna bar in my purse that I ate."

Poor, starving, Nana.

The 2nd account of Nana abuse was when we took Brig to my parent's mountains house for the first time. Brig came down with his first cold that night. He threw up several times, had a bad cough, was freezing cold, and had tons of congestion in his nose and throat. It was so sad. Dave and I got no sleep that night because Dave drove all over the world looking for a place to buy saline and a nose sucker at 3am, and Brig never slept longer than 20 minutes in a row.

The next day all 3 of us (Brig, Dave and I) were exhausted. My mom commanded Dave and I to take a nap, and said she would watch Brig. When she began to rock Brig in the rocker, he fell asleep right away. I told her I would be back in 45 minutes to check on them, and if he could stay asleep, that would be wonderful. I turned on the fire in the master bedroom to be sure Brig stayed warm, got the humidifier going so he could breathe, and shut the doors to the bedroom to keep the heat and humidity in.

Two and a half hours later I awoke from my nap with a start. Brig must be starving to death, or crying, or something. I raced up stairs to check on Brig and Nana. When I opened the door it was like stepping into a steam room, or a tropical rain forest. It was 95 degrees in the room, the humidity was so thick it looked like there were clouds in the bedroom, and there sat my sweet mom rocking Brig. She hadn't moved one muscle, and he had slept the whole time. As I looked at her I noted that her hair was sopping wet, there was beads of perspiration on her brow and face, and she looked at me with very large eyes and mouthed the words, "I'm hot. Can you open the doors?"

Poor Nana. She didn't want to move for fear of waking Brig. She told me later she kept thinking to herself, "If only I could get my necklace off, surely I would be less hot."

Thanks so much for all you do Nana - we love you!!!