So the grandbaby. Monday – day 5 of his life – his teenaged father was offered (to his surprise) skin on skin contact. So he removed his shirt and held the baby. The next day I understand he shed tears as he departed for uni down south. But what can you do. He needs an education.

On my visit early evening of day 6, baby was sound asleep. Apparently he’d been very grumpy all morning. He’s hungry but until his bowel does whatever it has to do, then it’s tube feeding of nutrients and fluids only. The nurse reckoned ‘food’ was 2-3 days away.

Today – day 7? (well he was born a week tomorrow) baby’s mum tells me that he’s doing really well. Perhaps he will be allowed some breastmilk tomorrow. Perhaps he will be allowed home at the end of next week.

I am astonished. Is the right? What happened to the thing about ‘prem babies are kept in hospital until their due date or close to it’ – I thought we had weeks to go.

It’s hard to know what to do about visiting a baby in an incubator. Not much you can do really.

However, the really hard thing is: what are next big steps in my own youngest son’s (baby’s father) life?

And so I emailed a few friends the extraordinary news … “on Thursday we become grandparents – it’s all a rather bizarre story. We found out about 3 weeks ago that our son’s 18 year old girlfriend was pregnant – she’d neglected to tell anyone – her mother only knew a week ahead of us. Baby was due 3 July but expected to be brought on early because of some issues.

“Anyway we’d barely digested this, hadn’t told anyone as we waited for him to come up from Dunedin for the Easter hols. Then he went back, and we told my parents, his brothers etc.  On Thursday I had a text from the girlfriends’ mother to say that C was going into delivery as the baby was showing signs of distress. Baby Gordon as he is currently known was delivered by C-section on Thursday weighing in at 1.7kg (about 3.7 pounds) which is ok apparently for a 32 week prem baby. He went into surgery that night to have intestines pushed back into his tummy – a condition called gastroschsis (spelling probably wrong) but is doing well.

“He’s in an incubator and wired up with lots of tubes. He had a breathing tube in for the surgery but that may well come out today (that was Saturday – and that happened). From a medical point of view, everyone seems pleased with him so far – inevitably there’s some uncertainties with prem babies about how they do.

“It’s all quite surreal – he will be in hospital for up to 8 weeks to bring him up to term. What happens next we don’t know. There is talk of adoption – probably our preference – but I’d totally understand if they can’t give him away. It’s all soooo complicated – we’re aiming for our son to finish this half year at Otago at least. So guess we will be paying lots of airfares over next 8 weeks!”

And so today (Sunday) – we visited again. We watched with fascination as the nurse checked him over. All that technology supporting one wee life. He had his urinary cathetcr removed so he can wee by himself.

So many steps to go through. His bowel may not work for another week or so.

It’s exciting, weird and very depressing in some ways – the future unknowable!

It sure was. The water was dated February 2005! Here I had been congratulating myself on how well prepared I was. Well, I was (kind of) back in 2005. So the kit (plastic box) revealed a veritable time capsule of what I must have thought would have been useful six years ago – clearly before we knew about the reality of real earthquakes!

There to sustain our family then comprising two adults, and three children aged 17, 15 and 12 was the following:

• 4 packs Yummy oriental noodle soup (yuck) and why four when we probably had five large teenagers at home?
• 1 can spaghetti – who would that be for?
• 2 cans tuna and 1 can sardine – latter would have been interesting as doubt the kids had ever had sardines
• 4 packets 2 min noodles
• powdered milk
• 2 packets Maggi soup
• 1 packet of muesli bars

That’s all going in the rubbish I’m afraid – just a bit over their use by dates! More sensibly – most of which can be retained:

• can opener
• torch and batteries – all sealed up but the batteries may be questionable after this time
• first aid kit but no sign of antiseptic or panadol
• old candles and matches
• 1 yellowed (v cheap?) toilet roll
• wet wipes – probably dried up?

The husband commented that the plastic containers had all held up well given the rat droppings – woops I just thought it was garden dirt.

Revamping the kit, means re-doing the water supplies including washing off the ‘dirt’ from the exterior! And now I’m thinking:

• hand sanitiser
• chemical loo – got to check out (husband points out that digging a long drop in our clay section is not a goer)
• small portable stove (bbq not sufficient to rely on)
• move ‘other’ quake supplies sitting in kitchen drawer, eg dynamo radio/torch to quake box
• lamp (having seen the brother and sister in law relying on candles for weeks – not attractive)
• more toilet paper!
• small bottle bleach.

As for food, I’m just not convinced that I need to have a separate stock. I like to imagine that even with the ‘big one’ we could access the many cans in the pantry even amongst the glass etc.

It’s so hard to plan for something that could happen in five minutes or five days or five years or 25 years. But Christchurch was real, so it’s dumb not to think about it. If I get reorganised, I wonder what my kit will seem like in another six years?

I enjoy baking and indeed I enjoyed watching the TV series. For me, some of it was about feeling greatly reassured when these supposedly top kiwi bakers stuffed up. That sounds a bit harsh – but when I misread a recipe, miss something out, under cook or over cook something – well I feel bad – like I’m stupid. And it seems a terrible waste (like all those eggs and olive oil that have to be thrown away every time I fail to make aioli – think I have now converted to Kato sadly).

So it was weirdly affirming that even the hot bakers muck up! But the “love stuff” – I’m not so sure about that.

Today I was hit with the “need” to bake. Was it about wanting to express my love for my lovely family? Well – a little bit – let’s face it there’s not much point in baking just for oneself. You need an audience – you need someone to eat it or you can are going to get really fat! This is the upside of still having two children at home (they are 17 and 20) they appreciate (and dispose of) the product.

But were they my prime motivators? No. I simply had an overwhelming desire to eat white chocolate and cranberry cookies – why? Possibly a little hung over – certainly tired – and they are one of the best cookies in the world. But I couldn’t have justified cooking 50 (the recipe claims it makes 60) cookies just for me and the old man.

And then the apple crumble. Well – that was a lot about using up some scungy old apples and the last of the rhubarb in the garden. So sensible am I! And also, healthy (sort of ) – both the cookies and the apple crumble have oatmeal in them. Shame about all that butter and brown sugar!

The down side of baking is creating dishes. Luckily we have a new Fisher & Paykel dishdrawer. It’s really great being able to load up one drawer and dispose of the extra baking dishes. But why – why -  why – can’t my family learn to use the dishdrawer concept.

Why do they leave dishes on the bench? Why do only put dishes in the top drawer ignoring the fact that we’ve started filling the lower drawer? Why if they don’t get this can’t they read the little system of dirty/clean signs so they don’t have to look at what’s in the drawer?

Videos is what I’m talking about. Why? Well who watches videos these days so who would buy them even on TradeMe. Indeed my children think CDs and DVDs are pretty much obsolete and prefer to download everything.

So I bit the bullet – and disposed of a huge pile of videos that represented many hours of enjoyable viewing time by those same children when they were young. However, one friend was horrified – and said to me “but why – videos are so much more reliable”.

And indeed when I thought about it, it’s actually true. When a video misbehaved, there were three very good solutions:

1. Stop – remove – and give the tape a little whack and re-insert
2. Stop – and run fast forward or backward – and then run until you find your place again
3. Run video tape/head cleaner.

But when a DVD packs a sad – well that’s it really. You just scream with annoyance.

And then there is the ease of recording. OK – so we don’t yet have Mi-sky or Tivo. But the fact remains, that in the wonderful video age we could watch one channel and record another – and it worked. Since we entered the cable age, our luck with recording has been extremely variable, and we can’t record while watching another channel.

So much for progress!

While I’m on the nostalgia rant, I need to mention the floppy disks that have also been “disposed” of. It was true that we’d had a large box of totally unusable disks sitting underneath our computers for several years past their use by date!

But again, a little flash of sadness – there goes the Netscape dial up kit from when we first got the internet, clip art masterpieces, scanned photos, Prince of Persia and other “classic” (probably extremely simplistic) games.

The next task is for the “children” to review all the games. Apparently apart from the useless freebies there are many both computer and Playstation games that no longer work so we could be rid of them. It is a actually a good feeling to be tidying up one’s life – am sure it must be good feng shui or something! Shame about the landfill but what can you do …

But no, the perfect present was a picture – a photo taken at the time of our wedding in a studio (as was the thing in times past) of the husband and I with our parents – enlarged and mounted on textured canvas. Cute! yes indeed I’ve always been obsessed about capturing our lives on film and this was a fresh new treatment.

What it did was made me really think about those people pictured on that day back  in 1984. How funny that we are soooo young (I was 26 and really believed I was pretty “old”  or “been around” by this stage).

And sad. The husband’s parents are both dead. How pretty my mother-in-law looks – I didn’t really know her at that stage. She went on to being a wonderful nana to our three sons. She (a non-driver) hot footed it by train and bus to the hospital after the birth of our first son. She was a fabulous knitter knitting the most complex beautiful woollen garments for my babies. But we never knew back in ’84 that she would develop Alzheimers and by the end barely (if at all) recognise any of her family.

And my father-in-law – the notion that he would go on to have  second wife and live out his life in another city would  have been unthinkable!

As for my own parents. My mother – this is so weird to me now – was only 56 – only five years older than me  now! I thought she was old – well she was my mother – and because of their church-based world, to this day I’ve always felt the need to protect them from the “real me” (that’s the drinking too much, having fun, spending too much etc that doesn’t fit with the Presbyterian worry about being careful about – everything – that was the message I got).

An interesting contrast to my own children, who (I think) don’t hide that much from us – nor indeed from their grandparents. The eldest grandson (my son) bares all about his life on his blog and we all sure know a fair bit about his life and lifestyle I’d say. A big change and for the better!

As of a couple of weeks ago, my mother had a stroke changing her life. I tell myself that life is a journey – and that age will change things – but it is painful. At my age I recognise that having two live parents is a luxury – I am lucky!

And my father. He officiated (with my father-in-law) at the wedding – and he was very emotional. Now he is coping with my mother’s brush with mortality and I truly can’t see one of them coping without the other. But what looking at the photo from the past tells me is that you really cannot predict the future!

And so we speculate … what does she do all day? And -  are we jealous?

We agree she’s looking pretty good. So it has to be about gym, beauty treatments and hanging out with the ladies who lunch. Apparently “someone” does the garden.

Two of us claim that we couldn’t stand such a vacuous life and if we were in her situation we would have to be studying, doing something creative and/or working for a charity – and really working not just organising a fundraiser ball.

The other wasn’t so sure – the idea of really having nothing to do except except look after yourself (well there is a husband who supports this lifestyle but he’s too busy earning money to be home too much) sounds pretty attractive when you’re desperately holding down a full-time job, managing children and a house etc etc.

I guess it’s a concept that comes with maturity that money breeds the very freedom that allows you to do what you want.

It’s not like for most of us that working a 40-hour-week is a dream come true (unless you are lucky enough to have the dream job).

So it’s interesting to see how disparaging the 21-year-old is of people stuck on the 9 to 5 treadmill (like his parents) and the materialistic world. On the other hand, as far as I can see he still has the wants and needs that come from having an income – and a reasonable one at that.

Then there’s the 19-year-old who is excited by the world of offices and jobs. Well this is also strange! But perhaps he is more likely to enjoy the process of making the money to get what he wants (and he does want lots). So the “journey” will be more positive, which is a good thing.

And that’s what it’s about for most of us – making work, work for us. One works to be free to do what you really want. Hence, I am trying hard to save up to visit the 21-year-old in Japan, not fritter money away and not grizzle about the treadmill that I’d like to get off.

Yes – I guess I am jealous – just a bit!

There’s J in a new country where every day is a new adventure – because it’s different, the challenge of making the shower work is an amusing story in itself. I’m thinking praps I should really commit (again) to the blog thing, partly to entertain the Jimmy.

So … what can I say. The O-one has taken to recording on his podcast his uni readings – this means reading it all out loud for hours. It may well be a good idea, but he certainly does like the sound of his own voice! He came home close to 5am Saturday (propping up the bar of the old Transparent chum) but to be fair, he did manage to go out with the grandparents and assist them in buying a new TV and DVD. That’s a task that takes massive patience!

The tall-T remains permanently attached to his laptop and buried in his room. I do find it kinda strange coming home and everyone is locked off in their little electronic spaces. A call from Telstra has meant that we have finally officially upp-ed our useage so we’re not paying thru the nose for extra downloads – god know why we hadn’t sorted that before!

And the old-one is attached to the sport on the TV or cacklin over QI. No film festival for us!

Husband was at rugby. Middle son insisted I read law essay immediately and then didn’t like my feedback. I thought I had REALLY extended myself given that I spend all day reading, writing, editing and thinking. That’s gratitude for you!

I was really really ready to “chill lax” as my kids say.

Anyway so I got to see the beautiful young things and one get voted off, and then  the 16-year-old and I discussed movies to view or download. It’s not easy to find a common ground with a 16-year-old boy. But I know that in a few short years my baby will leave home so I must treasure these moments he wants to share with me, good caring mom that I am.

But why – why did he think “Trainspotting” would be just the ticket? He had seen it before – I hadn’t. Deliberately. Because I knew what it was about and had heard about the really disgusting bits. So who needs it?

Anyway we watched it. Actually it wasn’t as bad as I had thought it would be. But I still don’t get quite why he thought it would be really my “kind of a movie”!

So yes, I admit it. It is a BIG deal! And I kinda regret my leap into the world of contracting as a start to changing my life.

But meantime, the middle child (yes the Commerce student and right winging type) continues to pronounce that jobs are “so easy to get”. He who has veered from discovering that selling KiwiSaver wasn’t so easy, is now full of the joys of after school care. Yes – that’s about beating 9 year olds at chess and discovering that playing soccer with primary school kids is exhausting.

How weird is that! He also has scored an internship in his second year of uni so is apparently on track for not only summer jobs, but a job at the end of the degree. So nauseating to the bros.

So an update on the BA. He’s off to Japan on the Jet programme to teach English – yay! From a mom’s perspective this means a trip o/s, a salary unlike the hand to mouth existence here and a time to grow up a bit and discover what to study next . Excellent!

What a relief. Still think he is destined to be a teacher (for a bit) [ie postgrad dip]. It’s not like it’s a lifelong commitment but a route to other things as his great grandmother, grandmother and mother have all discovered!