New Grandmas, Please Apply

Why does this bother me? I knew it would happen. I expected it, yet I am still surprised. I sent my grandmother some of the pictures from the Baptism because she couldn’t make the trip (“Oh Pansy, I can’t come! I am too sick!”). She said it: “Oh Pansy, I can’t believe all the weight you gained! Your father said you look good, but I couldn’t get over it!” Lady, please, get over it. I know I am not Gisele Bundchen, but dang! Who the heck tells a woman with a 4-week old baby how startled they are by her weight gain? Isn’t that in line with telling a nine-year old who just lost their parents in a car accident “Sucks to be you! Christmas just won’t be the same from now on, huh?”
I am in good company. She said “Oh, your father, my son, he looks like such a natural born priest in those pictures. Too bad he’s not a priest, just a deacon.”

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I don’t know why she gets to me so much, it’s always the same ole, same ole. Oddly, the more I know how she will react, the more it irritates me.

15 comments

  1. Dear Pansy:
    I would love to be your Grandma. Being just an aunt has become passe for me. I make great breakfast products like pancakes, waffles, fruit cup, and corn-based syrup. Is there some formal application or will this serve as sufficient notice?
    Sincerely,
    Aunt Jemima
    PS Check out my pancake “fun facts”
    PPS whatever
    http://www.auntjemima.com/

  2. Ladies, sorry to do this in the comment box but the email address on record is no good. I’m trying to clean up the web ring and am finding quite a few folks who’ve redesigned, moved, updated, whatever and no longer have the web ring HTML code on their site. The Two Sleepy Mommies need to readd the ringcode to their site for the St Blog’s web ring. If you’ll send an updated email address to me I’ll see that you get an email with your ring code account info so you can log in and retrieve the code!
    +JMJ+ John

  3. Gotta love this comment the person on that blog you linked to makes:
    “If being a model has taught me anything, it’s that fat people are gross. And I gotta agree with Gisele here, if you’re not as physically perfect as me or her you’ve got nobody to blame but yourself. Maybe the next time you’re born you’ll earn your good looks like the rest of us. And if not, at least have the good sense to kill yourself.”
    Maybe someone should go and … nevermind, whatever I was going to say wouldn’t be nice, and probably wouldN,t be suitable on a family-oriented website.
    I’d offer to be your grandma, but I think I’d have to be a bit older. I can put on a wig and come over with a cane in hand and bake you some muffins though.

  4. Oh, I hate it when I forget to fill in the darn information… that anonymous person up there,… that was me.
    Just call me Granny Coucoumelle

  5. WOW — that was really uncalled for! Is she the grandmother who lives in the haunted house?
    I thought you looked fabulous in the the baptism photos, especially compared to how I looked when my babies were that small.
    I do remember talking to one (now ex-)friend, to whom I`d sent a birth announcement and photo of me holding my firstborn, and she commented, “You look really BIG in that photo.” Ah…gee, I had sent everyone that particular photo because I thought it was flattering, but…GUESS NOT. I somehow “lost touch” with that “friend” over the years.

  6. Some grandmas…oh well, at least you’re healthy enough to realize how cookoo she sounds saying something like that to a four weeks out mom. I looked at the photos again and can’t really understand how any self-respecting grandma could look at my beautiful granddaughter and comment about something as trivial as her superslight weight gain instead of noticing how gorgeous she looked with her equally gorgeous familiy? I have one of those kinds of grandmas too though. I know them allll too well, and I’d be willing to bet she’s the same one who you will sneer a “GEE THANKS!” through your teeth at when she comments in a couple of months how thin you are and how good you look “now that you’ve lost some weight!”. I would have posted, “Grandma for sale” instead, maybe you at least could have gone shopping with the procedes?

  7. Do you think it might be a cultural thing? I know my family and my Mom’s friends (yes, even those who don’t even know me well) have said some really awful things re: my appearance. One day, one of her friends home care workers was at her apt to pick something up, and I walked in and this lady who I’ve never seen in my house said that I looked like a “Doña.” Now, “Doña” itself isn’t a horrible thing…it just means “Mrs.” but when it’s used in the way she used it, it means matronly in a dowdy sense. Really, it was just a very inappropriate thing to say to someone. But this stuff happens like daily, so I’m used to it. If it’s not my weight, it’s my hair, posture, just everything. In any case, just thought I’d commiserate. 😉

  8. Wow guys! Thank you for the compliments. I am a bit embarrassed because I didn’t expect to hear that, I just wanted to complain about “family stuff”.
    L-
    yes, the grandmother from the haunted house.
    Coucoumelle-
    My grandmother is not quite the image of one with the cane. I think they were spying on my family when they created Livia Soprano (right down to being descended from Avellino)
    Patty-
    In Italian we have a word like that- “Mamadell’ “. My grandmother tells me she makes Novenas for me because I look so matronly. I am not sure if it is cultural or just mean, but like I said, they hit the nail on the head with Livia Soprano, except she is named Carmella…

  9. Pansy, that’s okay, I’ll just be my own little (Uh,… make that huge footballeresque) granny, because you wanted a new one anyway right?
    Is she really as bad as Livia Soprano? 🙂
    I’m sort of starting to get a mental image of this grandmother, especially knowing that she is the haunted house one… I bet she’d make a great character in a movie too…

  10. I`m not surprised.
    If living in a haunted house doesn`t bother her at all, she must be totally desensitized to feelings, including empathy for others and basic common-sense tact and consideration.

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