Dear Mom,
You know I love you right? I enjoy your weekly Grammy night, along with the mirth and merriment you bring to the dinner table, even though you’re almost always late.
But please, please, PLEASE! stop bringing stuff over every time you visit.
I know you think it’s sweet, and part of a grammy’s job, but your just one little thing here and there have accumulated over the last half decade. Grains of sand scattered over the last five years have turned into a beach.
You’ve been coming over for dinner once per week for five years now. For each of those years I’ve consistently asked begged you to please stop bringing stuff over.
Let’s do some simple math!
52 weeks in a year times five years is 260 weeks. Times two children, that’s 520 tchotchkes. And sure, there have been a few random weeks when we either didn’t have Grammy Night or you showed up empty handed, but you and I both know you love to make up for these occasional deficits with a tsunami of surplus the following week. And always with certain glee gleaming in your eyes.
PLEASE STOP!
Your grandchildren do not need any more things. If you choose to spoil them, great, please do it with the gift of your time. Show up when you say you’re going to and spend time playing with them, preferably on their level and speaking their language. It is difficult for me to see you constantly grooming them to expect some sort of prize every time you knock on the door.
I’ll never forget the shocked, and rather hurt, expression on your face the first time you showed up empty handed and Mia said, “Grammy, what do you have for me today?”
You told her that was spoiled. You were right. But gee, Ma, whad’ya expect? Pavlov’s dog got slobber on the rug after the ding of a bell for a reason. It is precisely what I was cautioning since she was still bald.
I do not want our children to equate your visits with gifts.
Though I’d rather not bore anyone with a long list of the many things that make my eyes bleed every time I pass them, I do believe an example might be in order, as I wouldn’t want anyone to think I’m an ungrateful son who doesn’t appreciate the kindly gifts his generous mother brings each week.
I’d like to highlight two examples of “other people’s garbage” which are now part of my decor.
The Dora the Explorer Play Set
You were 45 minutes late the day you knocked on the door with this one! Most of your wonderful gifts come directly from the thrift store, but this one actually came from the side of the road! What’s that?!? you thought, flying by at 40 miles an hour. After making a U-turn to investigate the plastic play set that had been surrendered to the following day’s garbage pickup, you loaded the play set (roughly the size of Rhode Island) into your car and brought it to our house.
This thing is a big behemoth of molded loathing, played with until the edges were sharp and then abandoned. Mia and Max played with it for maybe twenty minutes on two different days. Yet it is a Grammy present which I am therefore not permitted to throw away.
Multiply this times 520.
The Donkey
I would rather have 42,741 Dora the Explorer Play Sets than this one donkey. And though I rarely use the word hate, I HATE this thing with a volcanic intensity.
I almost had a heart attack the day you brought this over. Grinning like a Cheshire, immeasurably pleased with yourself, this heinous Tijuana roadside eyesore has been the daily evil eclipsing my eyesight. It has migrated from room to room, carrying it’s diabolical filthiness everywhere it goes. Though you have been promising to bring the tail over for three years now, I do not want it…
Oh, I didn’t mention that? Yeah, in addition to the matted fur, and undisclosed history, this life-sized donkey (YES – LIFE SIZED!) has a gaping rusty hole where it’s tail should be.
I couldn’t make that up.
We are doing our best to teach our children that less is more, trying to teach them that time is more important than material goods.
Yet every visit undermines our teaching.
I do understand that you’re just trying to be “Grammy.” I get and accept that, but by making every visit special in this way, none of them truly are.
I know it feels good for you to buy things. Finding something at a thrift store and adding it to your endless inventory of priceless finds feeds something inside you. But it makes something inside me hungry.
Perhaps if I piled all the bunkum together in a single mountain you might listen, but I decided to write this letter instead. Hopefully, reading it at your favorite site will help to make my dream come true!
Thanks, Ma. I love ya!
P.S. Of course I would never publish this without showing it to my mom first. Not only has she read it, I’ll be posting her reply tomorrow.
About Sean Platt
Hahahahahahahahaha. LMAO. The idea that you have to look at the life size donkey everyday somehow makes my life better. Hahahahaha. I love your mom for bringing that into your life. It's my sincere hope that when your mom posts tomorrow we get to find out that she's been torturing you all along. That would just be the icing on the cake.
If instead I find out that your mom was torn to shreds by this and cried for a day at your insensitivity, I shall be forced to demand a refund, a written apology and I'll insist you 'gift' the donkey to Blogger Dad.
a gaping rusty hole where it’s tail should be Bwaaaaahahahahahahahaha!!
Smiling. This so awesome and it's something your children will look back on and laugh about. I'm reflecting now about the fabulous things my Mom used to bring over to my two oldest daughters, now 23, 25. They were always things that I had as a child and my mother would “Clean them up”….so to speak. They were so outdated that I wanted to scream….but the crowning touch was when she brought me the maternity clothes I THOUGHT I gave her to give away after the birth of my daughter in 1985…..she brought them over in 1995 when I was pregnant with my 3rd child….freshly laundered with a touch of musty basement. Puffy sleeves and bows, I just had to smile and say, “Mom, look at me. I don't wear that style anymore.” She gave them to me anyway and they made yet another pile of “stuff from her Grandma's archives”.
My mom passed away in 2001. When I dug through all the zillions of things she collected it taught me two things: 1. Throw things away as fast as you can because your children will be full of stress throwing it all away after you're gone. 2. Enjoy the things your parents do when they are alive, no matter how much it makes you roll your eyes.
Thanks for giving me a moment to remember my awesome Mom. I can't wait to see your mother's reply tomorrow!!
Do we have the same mom, or is it just a grandmothers disease? I'm thinking about petitioning all the stores between my house and hers to close during the times she travels between them. I don't think it will work though.
Oh, Sean… I do not have words for what this post has opened up for me this morning.
Memories of a mom of my own who never saw her grandson (my oldest) without a shiny new Blues Clues video in hand, and the envy I felt because I never managed to get him the newest one before she did. Of so many Happy Meal toys stuffed into his closet that at one point, I literally had to shovel them out with a snow shovel, years after she was gone…
At the time, it drove me nuts. And you're probably doing the right thing with this open letter. I had an “open letter” with my mom, face to face, on other subjects before she got sick, and passed on. It cleared the air between us.
Interested to hear your mom's response. And hoping you get a good deal on the portable dumpster that I feel is in your impending future.
(Smile)
I'm glad you liked it, but you don't have to look at that donkey every day!
And BELIEVE ME, even though my mom thinks it's hysterical that I hate the donkey, she wasn't doing it to be humorous and she isn't sorry in the least.
No exaggeration on the donkey hole. It is big, gaping and rusty, yup.
Hi Cheryl!
LOL, I can SO relate. I've nothing left from my childhood because (get ready to laugh) vagrants broke into our house and stole everything I had up in the attic.
I know that doesn't sound that funny, but wait.
See, we'd moved out of our house because it was filled with too much stuff and we wanted a fresh start. So we moved into a new house, but didn't rent the old one. Nosiree, we just left it filled with stuff.
Stuff that was stolen.
Or peed on.
So yeah, my mom. She likes stuff.
I do enjoy her, even though most of her stuff is eye roll inducing. She'll be pleased as punch with herself tonight at dinner.
Hmmm… I'm not so sure that would work. Maybe you could just try hiding when she knocks? I've thought of trying that before, but I'm sure my mom would just go around and knock on the back door. : )
Morning Kat!
Dumpsters though, Kat, dumpsters.
I'll write another open letter to my mom about her house, which looks like a set piece from some end of the world movie, where all that's left after the earth's destruction is fields of rolling garbage. : )
My mom's letter is in the queue. It's really rather sweet.
See you tomorrow, and thanks for coming by!
This should be required reading for every grandparent on the birth of each grandchild. Too much STUFF is serious; in addition to cluttering your house it causes huge stress because it all has to be DEALT WITH. It's spawned a whole series of shows on TV, though- Clean House, neat, Clean Sweep, and several episodes on Oprah with Peter Walsh, the “organizing guru”.
We have the same issue with my mom. She lives several states away but sends large, lavish gifts that she really can't afford for the holidays and birthdays. She gets upset if the gifts aren't used, but we don't need them! (Well, OK, the Wii is cool but she could have sent that one thing for all of us instead of that AND separate gifts too.) Sigh…
If my mom brought over a Wii, you would NOT hear me complaining, LOL. It's just STUFF, you know, the kind that has a momentary flash of fun, then just sits there for the rest of our personal eternity. UGH.
Thanks, Kim, I love to think of this letter as required reading. That might've just made my day!
Hi darling, I so enjoyed your letter. It made me laugh all over again. I will have to bring over a flower to plug the donkey hole when I come over tonight. I hope you will post my letter in its
original state without editing out my last statement. I think you originally misinterpreted what I said. See you tonight. kissy-kissy! (you don't know how much restraint i've shown with all the potential “kid presents” that are out there! They could fill your victorian reallll easy! :>)
It's embarrassing that that's you showing restraint!
Please, leave the donkey's hole alone.
(can't believe I just typed that)
Nothing wrong with your last statement. I reread it and it's just fine. I'll post it as is, no editing required.
I was going to bump it until Monday, because I wanted to run something on Potty Training Power tomorrow, but I think your letter should immediately follow, so I'm moving my essay of feces to Monday.
See you tonight!
Ever read the book “The Five Love Languages”? Your mom has gifts written all over her!!
I've not, but my mom has gifts written all over, falling from her nostrils and ears, stuck to her clothing, and following behind her like Pigpen's dust cloud!
:)
Thanks for stopping by.
Hi Sean,
Time to move. Try Colorado.
:-)
Colorado is on my short list of places I would move to. Gorgeous from everything I've ever heard from anyone I've ever asked.
Okay, can I send this to *my* mother? This is so great. . .
Fine by me! LOL.
See you tomorrow, Leslie. :)