Today my mother and I went over to my [married] cousin Ben’s house to babysit his daughter Isabela, and my step-grandmother Judy came over about half an hour to an hour after we got there. She was going to help babysit, although I don’t know if she knew beforehand about my being there. Anyway, she got there as Isabela was having breakfast and tried to get Isa warmed up to her. That didn’t work because all she got was a stare. Later when we were in the living room, Judy was still trying everything she could to get the 1-year-old to like her. Although it did elicit a grin from her, Isa continued to keep her distance from this strange, eager lady.
“Roll the ball to me, Isa!!”
Stare.
“I’m on the floor with you now! We’re all on the floor together!”
Stare.
“Do you see the bunny? Look how floppy his ears are!!”
Stare.
Nothing she did all day truly worked. Isa seemed more than happy to see Judy go, waving goodbye to her as well as pointing to her car outside.
Along with not liking this strange and eager lady, Isa also seems to really enjoy Christian books. She constantly wanted my mother and I to press the button on a book that plays the song, “Jesus Loves the Little Children.” Because of this looping request, it was basically on repeat the whole time we were there. (Oh, and guess what? She pointed to the windows whenever she heard the word “world”!!)
At one point she was digging through a stack of things and did not stop until she got to the very bottom. My mother thought she wanted a specific book, which Isa did, but it wasn’t related to animals as she had thought. Nope. It was a Christian book!! (“God Loves You” was the title.) Apparently this energetic girl also likes to borrow her mama’s Bible and look through it. Hopefully this positive attitude stays with her when she gets older!
Now it’s time for an explanation. Judy has been my step-grandmother since before I was born, and Isa would have been my real grandmother’s first great-granddaughter. I say “would have” because she passed away a little over 4 years ago. (Wow, has it really been that long?) My grandmother really did not like Judy because of how she was betrayed by her through adultery. She still loved Grandpa but it was harder to be with or around him, of course. Although it took Isa a little while to warm up to Grandpa, it finally happened. This is why it’s so interesting that she seems to get along okay with everybody in the family but Judy. We will see if anything changes on Friday but there are no [positive] expectations.
I really don’t want this to sound like bragging or anything because I am just stating something that my mother pointed out: Isabela seems to have really taken a liking to me. When Judy tried to bring her out to the living room she did not like that at all, but she got really happy when she saw me and for a few minutes, didn’t want me to put her down. Even if she isn’t acting like that I have personally noticed that she has a tedency to lean against me when she doesn’t feel like crawling/walking around. Maybe it doesn’t seem like anything major to you (and quite honestly, it didn’t seem like anything major to me either until today), but after today considering these little things makes me wonder if these things have anything to do with Grandma or if these two just happen to be really similar right now. I found out through family and friends of hers that I had been her favorite grandchild and that she had apparently talked about me a lot. It’s quite humbling to think about, actually.
The last thing is that my grandmother was a devout Christian and she loved Christian music. She and I would sing along to songs on the Cedarmont Kids cassettes when I was young, which were very similar to the song that Isa continuously wanted to hear today. Again….this may not sound like a big deal to you but there have been too many previous “coincidences” for me to believe that all of this combined is just a coincidence.
Maybe I’m over-thinking things as I have done before but these people are related….maybe, somehow, Grandma reached through to us again with her first great-granddaughter. Wouldn’t that be something?
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