and other times

House Guests

I hope you’ve all noticed how prolific I’ve been with the writing and the posting this week. It has felt really wonderful to be a bit creative and to be back on the writing wagon. I can’t tell you how many times over the past week I’ve said to myself, “Hmmm… did I ever end of writing about x subject on the blog?” And then I remember that I’ve barely written, at all, over the past three months. Boo for not writing. Woo for catching up.

So, about, I don’t know… five or six months ago, I started laying a fairly heavy guilt trip on both my mother and my grandfather about coming to visit us in our beautiful city of Chicago. I knew that Josh, Jude, and I likely wouldn’t be able to make a trip back to the east coast before the summer of 2011, so logically, I thought that both mom and grandpa should come to us.

The problem with this line of thinking is that 1. My mother doesn’t travel. Ever. Period. and 2. My grandfather won’t travel without my mom. Sure, the guy was in Germany during the war, but that was a couple two, tree years ago, so he (understandably) doesn’t want to fly alone.

I started off slowly with the both of them… “Gee Mom/Pop, we really miss you. You should see how big Jude is getting.” Then, I pressed a little harder, “Hey, Pop/Mom, you should think about coming to visit this summer… otherwise, well, Jude will be nearly FOUR before you see him again.” And finally, I laid it on them, “COME AND VISIT US OR JUDE MIGHT NOT KNOW WHO YOU ARE THE NEXT TIME WE SEE YOU!”

Honestly, I did not expect the guilt trip to work. But it did.

A few weeks ago, my mom called me to chat, and at the end of our conversation, she told me that I should let Jude know that his Grandma Rose and Great grandpa were coming to visit him for his birthday. The date of this phone call was not April 1st, so I immediately knew she was telling the truth, and wow, was I floored. She and my pop booked a flight for Memorial Day weekend, so in just over a week, I’ll get to see them both for the first time in just over a year. I super excited to see them both and to show them around this fine city (or our neighborhood, at least). Word has it that my pop has been packed for more than a week now. I think he’s excited, too.

Woo for family!

20. May 2010 by Jillian Frank
Categories: Daily Life | 2 comments