Traveling with grandchildren and learning a life lesson on the journey

I was excited about going to my nephew's high school graduation in the small town of Hurricane, UT - about 4 hours (give or take, depending on potty breaks) from my house. I would be traveling with my mother and my two youngest grandchildren, Cody - 4 and Kasie - 2 (names possibly changed for protection, or possibly not changed for blackmailing purposes by me - later in life).

There were many reasons to be excited. I have been speaking to my sister again after a long 'leave of absense'. It was her youngest of 9 children to finally be graduating and I was excited to share this moment with her and the rest of her family. I was going to help her prepare the feast that would follow the ceremony. We are a family of accomplished chefs yet I had never cooked with her. I was going to have the opportunity to get to know her two grandchildren a little better. She would get to know two of my eight grandchildren a little better and the best part of all, our grandkids would spend time together. The highlight of the trip would be spending time with my best friend; my mother.

We were leaving on Monday after my 70 year old mother got off work. She picked me up and we traveled together to meet my daughter. We were given her two youngest children with the promise of calling every day and returning them safely. That was that and we were on the road.

My mother drives a no nonsense Chevy Malibu. There is no built in DVD player, but she did bring along one of the portable varieties. I plugged in Toy Story at the request of the babies, but before I could get it to play, they were sleeping soundly and comfortably on their pillow pets. I don't think it looked very comfortable, but children seem to be able to contort and bend even when confined to car seats and seat belts and still wake up without any sign of stiffness or aching joints. They slept for the first hour or two and woke up only to go into a fabulous roadside gas station where I allowed them to have candy and chips - two things that they rarely get at my house!

That night I shopped and cooked with my sister, her grown daughters, our mother and for a bit, my granddaughter. That was four generations in my sister's kitchen and it was wonderful. I went to bed that night in the lower level of my sister's home, smiling as I went to sleep next to my mother and my granddaughter on a king sized blow up mattress with my grandson sleeping at the other end on his very own blow up mattress.

Graduation day, I was just sick enough to stay home with all the kids. But I set up all the food and drinks and it was a flurry of activity as people came with well wishes and advice for the future. Several hours later, the house quieted down and we snuggled in again on our blow up mattress, which immediately went flat and sunk to the floor, causing a little shifting in our sleeping arrangements.

The next day brought about packing to go home. Once again I looked forward to having some time with my mom and my grandkids. The kids slept again on pillow pets - like angels. I had nice conversation with my mother about my upcoming plans as I prepare to open my own business. The kids woke up and our conversation shifted to include them.

My grandson began an impromptu story about dinosaurs that he could see in the mountains, tracks he was spotting, snow leopards that were hiding high in the snow capped hills and the two year old commented where she had the conversational skills to do so. My mom innocently turned up her Enya cd - a little louder than she should have. I turned it down and said "mom, I can't hear him. Not so loud", and the war was on. Just like that, I saw my mom turn into someone's spoiled little sister! She not only turned the sound to 0, but finished by turning the stereo to OFF - with force! I told her that I didn't want her to turn it off, just down a bit and she responded that "she just wanted to hear that song". Now I could have let it go at this point, but I turned into someone's bossy older sister (because I have practice at that!) and told her that this conversation with my grandson would happen exactly once in my lifetime and she could listen to her Enya cd every minute, every day for the rest of her life. The argument escalated to the point that the grandchildren stopped talking altogether and watched with wonder as a middle aged woman and an old woman transformed into a couple of fussy babies right before their eyes.
Now, of course there were other things said that I won't go in to, but suffice it to say, we both came away with hurt feelings and we managed to sour the rest of the ride home for the kids.

When we dropped the kids off to their mom, we put on smiles but hurridly went on our way pointing to the fact that I was getting more sick by the minute. My mom dropped me off and we apologized to each other for the ridiculous argument. We hugged each other and both said "I love you". We'll go a couple of days before we speak again, perhaps because we're stubborn, but mostly because I'm sick and we'll both use my pneumonia as an excuse not to pick up the phone.

What I learned from all of this is that my mom is a person. Of course I knew that before, but I think we sometimes forget that our parents or our children/grandchildren are people outside of the roles they play in our life. I learned that my mom loves some music so much that it doesn't enter her mind to check her surroundings before turning up the cd - all she knows is that the music makes her feel good. She wasn't trying to be inconsiderate and she wasn't being selfish, she was just being her and tuning in to how the music made her feel. She is a beautiful person with friends who love her, people who know things about her that I will never know. She is a wife who has told secrets to the same man for 53 years and even though she and my father almost never see eye to eye, she will continue to wake up to his face every day for the rest of her life. She is someone that sometimes doesn't think before she speaks (like most people) but wouldn't intentionally hurt anyone through her words or actions. All this I learned about my mother through an argument that lasted less than 15 minutes.

I love her, I admire her, I respect her - not just because she is my mother, but because she is a person. I think I will buy her a collection of Enya cd's and have the music piped through her house. Only she will have access to the volume control.