What I learned this week: I've become 'that' grandma

Fridays are typically when I share with readers far and wide what I've learned during the week. This Friday, though, because I'm currently at BlogHer 2013 and my head at this very moment is likely ready to explode with all the things I'm still learning this week, I'm going to share with you one of the things I learned last week.

And what I learned last week is this: I've become that grandma.

You know, that grandma who gives her grandchildren things like this:

lollips

Yep, I gave those to Bubby and Mac last week. Fancy-schmancy, sugary lollipops topped with two — count 'em, two! — ring pops. Each! Oh, the sugar they beheld. (I originally planned to share with you a photo of the nutritional info, too, but why spoil the fun?).

I was smart, though. See, I gave those sticks of sugary sweetness to Bubby and Mac just before I left for the airport to return home after spending a week with them.

So, yes, I've become that grandma. Not just the one who gives unhealthy jaw-dropping injections of sugar via irresistible treats, but the one who does so wisely, sugaring up up the children then heading for home, leaving Mom and Dad to deal with the sugar high and the subsequent low.

(Of course, I like to flatter myself and consider the subsequent low came not after the sugar wore off, but when the boys realized Gramma was gone, as they both had fallen asleep in the car on the way to the airport and the farewell was merely a foggy moment of interrupted slumber.)

Either way, I'm that grandma — and I'm pretty darn proud of it!

And that is what I learned this week.

Today's question:

What did you learn this week?

What I learned this week: Tattoos aren't as painful as I expected

I considered getting a tattoo years ago. I wanted something subtle and relatively small, and I flirted with the idea of getting a thin ankle bracelet tattoo of some sort. From what I hear, though, getting an ankle tattoo would be rather painful because there's so little fatty tissue on my ankles (well, on most days). I'm not a fan of pain, so I never got that — or any — tattoo.

Yesterday I finally got a tattoo, and it wasn't painful at all. I've no doubt that the pain-free application was because of the loving-yet-professional manner in which the tattoo artist worked. That tattoo artist being my grandson.

Bubby's tattooing technique elicited not even the slightest wince or grimace from Gramma as he applied the cheeriest of flower tattoos upon my ankle.

temporary tattoo application

temp tattoo

temporary tattoo

Tattoo work courtesy Bubby was done as a barter deal. Once he had completed my tattoo, I returned the favor by applying tattoos to him and his brother, Mac. The designs were admittedly less cheery than my smiling flower; the "Angry Birds" tatts were selected by each boy, as were the locations for their faux flair.

Angry Bird tattoos

Angry Bird tattoos

Despite Mac's woebegone look in the photo above, the process was as pain-free for my grandsons as it was for me. Which supported my assertion that getting a tattoo isn't as painful as I've assumed all these years. At least not when applied by my grandson — or by a grandma.

And that is what I learned this week.

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone. May it be as painless as the process of getting tattooed — with temporary tattoos, that is.

Today's question:

What did you learn this week? (And if you have a tattoo tale or two, please share.)

 

What I learned this week: Our voices matter

child's drawing

I used to sing, now I mostly whistle. For as long as I can remember, I've enjoyed accompanying music of all varieties, from big bands to little bands, from songs that rock to those that roll classically or otherwise. That accompaniment most often came by way of singing along.

Then I started losing my voice on a regular basis. Year after year — afteryearafteryearafteryear — I would get a bad cold that would quickly become laryngitis and I couldn't speak at all for days on end, much less sing. So I whistled.

Whistling came in handy when I had no voice, at least for carrying a tune. It didn't help a bit, though, when I needed to speak. For one long stretch of years, the years when I was a writer then editor at the newspaper, the loss of my voice every couple of months frustrated me to no end. I'd have interviews to conduct, people I'd have to speak to on the phone.

I'd gargle lemon juice in the morning before going to work, gargle lemon juice in the restroom at work, gargle it (or sometimes straight vinegar) before conducting an interview. The sour juices would cut through whatever rendered my vocal cords silent and and I could speak... for at least a few moments.

Sometimes, when the lack of a voice made it impossible for me to conduct my editorial business as I should, I had to ask my coworkers at times to return phone calls on important matters or I had to resort to emailing those who needed to talk to me. And this was before the days when folks checked their email on a regular basis — and long before texting was an option.

When my newspaper department was cut and my associates and I were left surviving on freelancing gigs, the loss of a voice still tripped me up now and again. I clearly recall one horrendous interview for a freelance article, a time when Froggy from Little Rascals had nothing on me and my croaking voice, yet the show, er, interview had to go on. I was so embarrassed listening to myself later as I transcribed that interview. So painful it was to hear, and so painful for my poor interviewee.

Soon after that interview, I started my blog. I've not lost my voice since.

As silly and new-agey as it may seem, I do believe in the mind-body connection, and the connection to losing my voice was this: I wasn't saying what I needed to say, the things I needed to let out, the things I wanted people to know about me and hear from me. My blog allowed me to make my voice heard. I was saying the things I needed to say, so no longer would I lose my voice.

Because I've been sick many, many times since starting my blog but have not once lost my voice, I firmly believe that through my blog I found my voice.

Through my blog others have found my voice, too. My voice seems to have resonated with the grandmas and others who have read Grandma's Briefs during the past four years. And this week I learned that my voice has resonated with others beyond grandmas, too.

See, back last year, there was a moment when I was incredibly frustrated by the manner in which I felt grandma bloggers were treated (or ignored) in the bloggy world. So I wrote a post about it, called it The Grandma in a Box. The post was so well received by the readers of Grandma's Briefs that I decided to enter it in the 2013 BlogHer Voices of the Year, which is a pretty big honor for the bloggers chosen.

And this week I learned that post of mine was named — out of the 2,600 entries — not only a Voices of the Year honoree, but the People's Choice selection in the humor category. (The other categories were Inspiration, Heart and OpEd.)

My voice... among the 100 chosen. My voice... one of four People's Choice winners. My voice... now officially a voice that mattered.

So unexpected, so humbling, so exciting.

BlogHer 2013All 100 bloggers selected in the 2013 BlogHer Voices of the Year — including several other midlife voices such as my Generation Fabulous friends Lois Alter Mark, Sandra Sallin, Janie Emaus (a Grilled Grandma!) and Shannon Bradley-Colleary — will be honored at the BlogHer conference July 26 in Chicago. The honor is a big deal, for me and for all the other bloggers named for their voices.

But the honor is a big deal for all grandparent bloggers, too, because my voice — a grandma voice — apparently mattered to folks who are not grandmas, folks who selected the Voices of the Year. Which is huge! That means grandma (and grandpa!) bloggers are finally getting noticed, finally being heard, finally, I hope, being let out of the box.

Not only does my voice matter, our voices matter. And that is what I learned this week, courtesy the 2013 BlogHer Voices of the Year.

I'm over and out for the week, but I look forward to seeing you again Monday here for the GRAND Social link party for grandparents. It's where you can share your posts — your voice — so I hope you'll join me.

Have a lovely weekend!

Today's question:

What did you learn this week?

What I learned this week: Reason No. 11 why I won't live near my grandsons

As many of you know, I live more than 800 miles away from my grandsons. When my daughter and son-in-law first told my husband and me we'd be grandparents, it broke my heart. I was certain I'd not survive unless they relocated to live near me.

They never did.

Of course, there was the option of my husband and me moving to live near them. A lot of grandparents do that, but it's just not in the cards for me. I wrote about my reasons for not doing so in this article. At the time I wrote it, one big reason I noted for not moving to be near my grandsons is the fact I have a life here in the mountains — a life that includes my (yes, adult and out of the nest) oldest and youngest daughters who live in the mountains, too, despite my middle daughter and her family preferring the desert.

There are other reasons why I won't live near my grandsons, and another I hadn't originally thought of became crystal clear this week.

I like to take photos. I'm not the greatest, though I'm working on getting better. Here are two I took of nature in all its glory while looking out the sliding doors to my deck this week:

 butterfly on flowers
A butterfly enjoying the dianthus.

squirrel relaxing
A squirrel relaxing in the tree.

Compare those two photos to two my daughter took of nature in all its glory around her place this week. Keep in mind that this is my daughter who, along with her husband and my two grandsons, lives in the desert. Here are the photos she texted me:

scorpion
A scorpion lodged inside the honeycomb window blinds.

lizard in garage
A lizard in the garage — just outside the door to the house.

I'd say nature in the mountains (my place) is far easier on the eyes — and nerves — than nature in the desert (their place), wouldn't you?

The bottom line/the moral of the story being that if getting to see these two adorable kids...

boys in inflatable pool 

... on a regular basis means seeing those two frightening critters on a regular basis, too, I'll take being a long-distance grandma any day. I'm not proud to admit that... but it's true.

And that is what I learned this week.

Well, I also learned that my daughter is far more brave than I ever thought she'd be, that little Meggie of mine who once (as a teen!) captured a spider in our family room late one night by placing a heavy bowl over it, then taping a note to the bowl asking me to take care of what was trapped inside once I awoke. Now look at her — taking photos instead of screaming and running!

(Now I hope I'll be just as brave and not be completely freaked out about icky desert things when I visit my daughter, son-in-law and grandsons in 10 days!)

Best wishes for a critter-free weekend, wherever you may be! I look forward to seeing you all again on Monday!

Today's question:

What did you learn this week?

What I learned this week: Beware of bad grandmas

copyright infringement

Tuesday night, as I watched the last episode of The Voice (and crossed my fingers Michelle Shamuel or the Swon Brothers would win), I received on my phone a Facebook message. It was a friend alerting me to posts and pictures of my grandson Mac that were being prominently featured on another grandma's Facebook page.

The Facebook page in question isn't that of a friend or a regular reader of Grandma's Briefs. It's a Facebook page unrelated to a blog or website, and it bills itself as dedicated to "grandparents and grandkids."

After checking out what my friend directed me to, it was clear the content was not something I had shared on Facebook, not a "share" from my Grandma's Briefs Facebook page. No, it was my original copyrighted material copied in full from this post. Worse yet, it featured the photo of Mac that went with the post, stolen from this blog and pasted on that Facebook page as if it were their own material. No attribution, no mention of Grandma's Briefs, no admission that it was not their material and not their grandchild they were sharing. (There were, in fact, two of my posts that Facebook page had stolen from this blog, but only the written text from the second.)

Worse yet... that stolen content was being shared and shared and shared across Facebook. My words. My grandson. My post. My copyrighted material. Yet no one seemed to notice that the bad grandma who put it on her page was not the owner of the material, not the grandmother of the precious little boy they all found so cute and shareable.

I was livid. I was literally shaking as I commented on the post on that page, asking the grandma to please remove my content, but more importantly, to remove my grandson's photo from her page. There was no response to my comment on that post requesting it be removed (even though I know she was there as new posts were being added as I steamed), so I had to private message her. Her response — as the sharing from her nearly 25,000 Facebook fans of my post and grandson continued: "...sorry, your pic should have a link or a owner name. ( your mistake, not ours)."

I was appalled at her response, her refusal to accept responsibility for stealing from my blog (as I said, I had not shared the full post on Facebook, ever) and her refusal to completely remove my grandbaby and my copyrighted words from her page.

It took quite a few go-rounds, many private messages from me to those who unwittingly shared stolen property and my grandson's photo, many threats from me to that unethical grandma that I'd be reporting her for copyright infringement before she finally and reluctantly removed my content. After it had been shared across Facebook by nearly 300 of her fans.

Okay, I know my grandson is cute. And my 10 commandments for grandmothers post was a fairly clever one if I say so myself. And ya know what? If that grandma had requested permission from me to post it on her page or had included the fact it was from my site and noted that the photo was my grandson (whose face isn't visible in that photo, thank heavens... it's the one above, just with different text for that stolen post), I probably would not have cared. I probably would have welcomed the request to share my work. But she didn't ask. She came into my house (my blog), stole my stuff (my words and photos), and offered to share it with the world as if it were hers to share.

So very, very wrong. Even more wrong was that she refused to accept responsibility for her actions or apologize for the mistake.

What makes this even worse is that I am not the first person this woman has stolen from in this manner. I have a grandma friend — who shall, at her request, remain anonymous — who experienced the very same thing, sans the photo of a grandchild, luckily. My friend went round and round to have her content removed.

Finally my friend won, the content was removed from that page. Time went by. Then the bad grandma stole content from my friend again, giving no attribution to the owner of the copyrighted material. Oddly and sadly enough, there are other Facebook pages that have done the exact same thing to that exact same grandma friend.

Truly unbelievable. Especially because all the pages that did it are grandmas. Or claim to be.

As I told the bad grandma who stole from me, she should be ashamed of herself and that I hope her grandchildren do not follow her lead. She came back at me with a "no need to get personal," which seemed rather ironic to me because when you steal photos of my grandchild, copy and paste my words/writings/works, that seems quite personal.

I continue to "like" that Facebook page — only so I can keep an eye out for my content, photos of my grandchildren being shared without my permission. It's one thing to "share" something I have placed on Facebook for friends and family, such as you folks, to share; it's entirely another to come to my blog, copy/paste/steal my content then post it on Facebook and pretend it's yours.

So the bottom line, the reason for this long-winded diatribe is to warn you all to beware the bad grandmas who may steal your content and share it on Facebook. I will keep an eye out for your content being shared. I hope you will keep an eye out, too, not only for my content but for that of all the grandmas in our grandmahood, those of us who know each other — even if only online — those of us who have each other's backs.

Together, we must beware of bad grandmas. That, my friends, is what I learned this week.

<heavy sigh>

As I step down from my soap box, I'd like to wish each and every one of you a fantastic weekend. I so very much appreciate you all, and I hope to see you here again come Monday!

Cheers!

Today's question:

What did you learn this week?