Happy birthday, Lotte!

Charlotte in one of her photo sessions with Valeri Estrada from Little Blue World Photography

In a few weeks, my darling granddaughter Charlotte will turn two. Forget about the terrible twos, she started into that developmental stage about six months ago. It occurs to me that one of the reasons I got the ax from my former employer was they thought I wrote about Charlotte too much, and I haven’t written about her for months.

Being a grandmother is not what I expected. In some ways, it is so much more: that overwhelming unconditional love that you thought you’d never feel except for your children. And at the same time, it is not all Hallmark moments, especially with a granddaughter as precocious as Charlotte.

Charlotte and her mommy at the beach in Santa Monica.

I imagined that Lotte would be a cuddle-bug like her mommy: eager to sit in a lap, bestow kisses, ask for a story, or stroke your hair. Charlotte is way too busy for all of that. She is cuddly with her mom and dad, of course, but only on her own terms. To my daughter’s heartbreak, she is sometimes banished from the play space by her tiny tyrant.

With everyone else, she is like a skittish woodland creature: curious about this adult who has invaded her space, but not very anxious to have a close encounter of the third kind. Not shy, really, because she’s happy enough to have you stare at her; she’s just wary, like a faun at a watering hole.

I approach her like I would any wild animal: I acknowledge her presence but keep my distance. I let her come to me. You can’t just pick her up, or she screams bloody murder. Now that she is talking, eventually she will want to tell you something, so she initiates contact.

Lotte checks out part of a train with
her daddy at Travel Town. She always
wants to know how it works.

She is whip-smart, and curious about everything. Her mind is like a pachinko machine—you can almost see the bright silver balls bouncing from pin to pin as she takes in a concept and makes the connections, ending with the payoff of enlightenment.

Her dad is determined that she not be prissy and too girly, so he loves that she will eat bugs with him at the natural history museum and isn't afraid of snakes.

But I think he's fighting a losing battle with the girly stuff; Lotte is Disney-princess crazy, with Ariel and Tiana being her personal favorites. 

She brings out the best and the worst in me. Like the other day: In response to her command “Don’t touch me!”, I childishly chased her into the kitchen with my index finger outstretched, and poked her in the stomach when I caught up to her. Yeah, I know, I should be above that, but suddenly I was 7-year-old again, with a bratty brother in the backseat of my parent’s station wagon.

I imagined being a traditional, but hip, grandmother. You know, one who bakes cookies, sews heirloom dresses, AND listens to alt-rock, but it turns out I'm so busy, I don't have time to bake, and I mostly babysit Charlotte for her parents' movie dates. Lotte has a very full schedule of playdates, naps, doctor visits, and outings, so it can be difficult getting facetime.

So far, the extent of my spoiling has been to let her watch "Nightmare Before Christmas" whenever she comes to my house. I do this because when she walks over to the television, blonde curls bouncing, and asks "Jack? Sally?" I am helpless to resist her charms.

 

Charlotte, two binkys in one hand, finds a spot of dirt
on the street in Beverly Hills.

She is particularly fond of the male part of the species. She is no sooner on my doorstep than she starts asking about my husband: "Pop-Pop?" to which the answer is most likely, "He's at work."

Now that we've said that so many times, she will answer her own questions, saying" "Pop-Pop is at work..." .

Constantly in motion, one of the few things that will slow her down is an offer to read a book. If you're lucky, she'll only want to hear it once, otherwise, she pipes up with, "Again?" as soon as the last page is turned.

She doesn't suck her thumb, or carry a blanket, so when she needs soothing, she wants a binkie. Actually, she wants two: one to suck, and the other to stroke her cheek with, much the way Sherlock Holmes fingers his pipe.

Although I think her goal is world domination when she's lost in thought like that, not problem solving.

It's hard for me to imagine ever taking her affection for granted, but maybe it is a good thing that she bestows kisses the way a queen does land grants — it makes you appreciate them even more. When she slides her little arm around my neck and buries her face in my shoulder, I know there is nothing I wouldn't give her, no task she could set me I wouldn't do gladly.

Lotte is such a joy that she inspires me to want to live a long life in order to see what crazy thing she will do next.

littleblueworldphoto.com