My wife and I are baby boomers, born the year after the peak.  We’re both on our third marriage, and it’s a charm!  Collectively, we have five kids.  This essay is about the middle one.  She and Mama fought all the time a few years ago.  She left on her eighteenth birthday and Mama cried.  Out loud and proud.

     She’s 21 now, and has a 27-month old and a 4-month old.  Both girls.  The “BabyDaddy” is in jail for multiple driving offenses, but it could be for any number of infractions, as he is wont to do all those things a man of poor character chooses.  She doesn’t like to be alone, so She moved back to Mama.  Life for her is good.  No rent.  No bills.  No responsibilities.  Mama’s there.

      BabyDaddy got out yesterday.  She picked up the girls and moved back to their apartment.  Everybody knows it is only temporary.  He will beat her and She will be rescued by Mama once again.  We’ve talked to professionals about this.  Their advice?  Take her in and don’t tell her how to live her life.  Eventually She will feel trapped, and She will get out for good.  If we rebuke her for her rotten choice in a relationship, She won’t have any way out of the trap.

     One good thing about having her here for all those months is that we got to bond with our grandchildren.  Everyone thinks their grandbabies are pretty, but we have confirmation.  We hear it all the time when we take them out.  “My!  What a pretty little girl!”  At home, it’s all Giggles and Smiles.  That’s their nicknames.  Giggles is the older and Smiles (aka: my little burper girl,) is the younger.  They are pure love and joy.  We have been required by better sense to mind how we treat them.  Play too hard before bedtime and they don’t want to go to sleep.  Feed them junk food and pay the consequences!

     Now they are gone except for visits.  Finally!  We can spoil them rotten and send them home!  “What’s that?  You like gramma’s cookies?  Want another one?”  hehehe  “You’re such a pretty girl!”  Life is finally the way it is meant to be.  And thanks to the South Beach diet, my beach buddy and I are healthy enough to enjoy it!  I can’t tell you how hard it has been, plodding through it all in anticipation of this slice of life.  It is here for a time, and I’m lovin’ it!  As for Mama; Mama is as Mama does: she’s waiting for the other shoe to drop.

     So go ahead and ask me how I am.  I’ll reply “Happy and healthy!”