Legitimizing Mackenzie

Grace went back to school today, five weeks to the day that she last attended. Comparing that span with the amount of time that her mother took to recover after Grace's birth, I find that my head is moving to and fro in appreciation of Grace's rate of recovery. I guess logging on to "donehadababy.com" is easier for a 17-year old than for a woman twice that age.

This new addition is pretty cool. She appears to accept what is, without much judgment.

When she was awake, I kept her busy. While she napped, I read and researched, and finalized a contract to buy a fourplex in Augusta for a Florida couple. Then, we started "our time".

I threw her in the truck, and went down to design a commercial property sign for a place I recently listed in Columbia County. No sooner did Jamie see Mackenzie than he started talking about his own 10-month old, which led to his telling me of trying to sell his house "by owner", which led to our discussing the advantages of having Sand Hills Properties sell it. (The exponential exposure of MLS, in particular.)

After agreeing on the prototype for our new sign with Jamie, we buzzed up Wrightsboro to the BiLo. WOW, what fun. There is something about a grown man in a grocery store with a five-week old that brightens most everyone's experience. One woman mistook me for the father. That is as it should be, factoring in my youthful appearance and mien, and my native manifest virility.

Next, Sav-a-Lot. Dude, shop there. Their pricing structure will fracture your expectations about grocery shopping.

As I turned onto Hickman from Central, Mackenzie squeezed my pinkie. A powerful feeling filled the world. It was 1984, the squeezing child was Laura, all the amazing love I experienced that accompanied her birth - vast unanswerable intrusions - pressurized the truck cabin. The joy, the hope, the celebration, the focus, the enpowerment - everything - all conveyed in a tiny grasp. The truck moved up the gentle incline of Hickman; the tears trickled down the grown-less-callow cheeks. A block-and-a-half, and I'm in my driveway. I unfastened the five-point harness of Mackenzie's car seat. "I remember, little girl, when I turned to Janice and said of your Aunt Laura, 'she'll never remember the happiness she's brought us', and she doesn't. Just like you won't." And, as I snuggled her into my manbosom and kissed her fuzzy scalp, I heard myself thinking, "Could my mother have ever felt that about me?" Child is father to the man.

After we got home, while Mackenzie napped, I made some calls, and made a pot of chili. I called Laura to ask her to stop by, if she was hungry between classes. She told me that Boo was on her way home. I called Sarah to let her know "soup's on", but she told me that the plans had been changed, and that she would be here tomorrow.

Grace showed up around 3:30, and wanted to vent about her school's administration not wanting to have her bring Mackenzie to the Powder Puff football game after school. (Isaac helped coach the freshmen!) We talked at some length about the impact of a student having carte blanche to bring her kid to school functions, and I came down in complete support of the administration. Gracious was concerned that I would be tired of tending to the kid, but I was energized by it. (I even mopped the g.d. kitchen floor today! (I have an unnatural aversion to kitchen floors, more than any other of the domestic tasks. When I was young, but the eldest of five, my superb-housekeeper mother would sometimes have me do the kitchen floor. (I am talkin' butter knife to help remove heel marks and the like.) ) I have never tapped into the Zen of floor cleaning.)

Gracelli went to the game, and Mackenzie and I went to Kroger to score some of the specials. When we returned, Laura was here, and Grace was here. They ate chili, talked, and fussed over the baby. Woo opined, "good chili - not as hot as I like it - but good." Private Benjamin Appetito. Butterbean said it was "bangin'".

I told them that I was thinking about starting a Mackenzie blog. "Not to 'oo and ah' over this kid" - gag me to the Stone Age!, but to use her daily presence here as a cover "for the idea I have been kicking around for about 25 years: what ever happened to Holden Caulfield?" He loved his kid sis and her playmates, and wanted to protect them. He came a bit unglued. But I have always felt that the impetus for that "catcher in the rye" would never be excised from Holden. He might end up as the VP of an insurance company, and look like any other guy with a life that was partly pleasing to him, but the tender and attentive lad would abide within the aging man in the grey flannel suit.

"You know . . ., something like this: Holden gets out of the nuthouse, finishes school, goes to work, gets married, raises his kids until their mother decides she will begin to help as she is on her way out the door, watches his family go straight to hell under her watch, then Holden gets to tend to his illegitimate granddaughter while his daughter finishes high school. What do you think?"

"Dad," Woo said, a bit of concern betrayed within her otherwise light tone, "don't call Mackenzie 'illegitimate'. Look how perfect she is! Say 'his perfect granddaughter'."

So, it is up in the air as to how Holden's grandkid will be identified as her mother begins the final phase of her public school education. Meanwhile, Mackenzie "hangs" with a Holden who prefers to be called by his given name - instead of "Grandpa" - by the little pink frog in question.