I had the Best Days with You

Hello all again,

I just posted about my incredible mother, but I have someone else that I would like to thank via blog on this Mother's Day. I felt that she deserved her own post at the very least. She is what most people would call a grandmother, but I call her Nanny.

Nanny is my Daddy's mom. I am one of the luckiest grandchildren in the world because my Nanny lives right down the property line from me, so I got to grow up having the grandchild perks close at hand. For those of you who are confused as to what grandchild perks are they are the things you get from your grandparents that you often don't or can't get from your parents such as dismissal of punishment and restrictions, candy at night, staying up late watching Disney movies, shopping trips to get things your parents already said no to(such as my larger than life Lucky Dalmatian from the Disney store that cost over 100 dollars), homemade food of delicious proportions, kisses and that magic salve that made all boo boos better, etc.

My earliest memory with my Nanny is baking sweets with her. She let me participate at a very early age. Participation for me mainly included my love for cracking the egg and eating the mix. She makes the best brownies I have ever tasted! Actually, she makes the best of everything that I have ever tasted. We spent many hours in the kitchen to please my cooking delights. I was supposed to help her clean up after we were done but some how she never protested when I said I was worn out and needed to rest with my chocolate smudged face.

Nanny really did anything that I wanted to do. If I wanted to draw and color she would break out our enormous storage box of art supplies and draw with me. Her drawings of houses were my favorite. They were simple little houses, but they were so detailed in my eyes. She got it right down to the chimney with smoke to the upside down W shaped birds in the sky next to the clouds.

I had everything I could ever dream of from her. Nanny didn't go in a store without buying me something. Our store was the Disney store. It was my favorite place to go to in the mall. I had to go every time we went into town and we never left without a new stuffed animal. The most ridiculous thing my Nanny put up with was my uncontrollable obsession with The 101 Dalmatians. Anything related to the movie was something I had to have. There was a whole section in that stored dedicated especially to my crazy fixation, and I made a beeline to the overstuffed display with stuffed, black and white spotted dogs of all sizes as soon as I entered the store. Needless to say, I ended up with a bed that I couldn't even sleep on because of all the dalmatians on it. Or at least I didn't need a blanket, they kept me warm enough.

It didn't stop there though. Anytime Nanny loaded me up in the car to go somewhere, the dalmatians had to come with me. She came up with the idea of putting them in a laundry basket for safe traveling and went along with the water dish and blanket that I insisted on bringing. I was so over the top, but like a good Nanny, she went indulged my one true love.

Nanny is so much more than just a sweet Grandma type baking cookies and giving out kisses. She was involved with my life on a daily basis from infancy all the way up until now. She supported me in everything that I wanted to do or try. Take cheerleading for an example. In middle school I got the wild hair notion that I wanted to be a cheerleader. I had cheered for Normandy Pop Warner as a little girl but this was a whole different ball game so it was time to get serious. She signed me up for tumbling lessons and cheer clinics to work on the skills that I did not have. She drove me back and forth to practice every day and paid for everything too. Cheer tryouts came along and I decided to rock some corn rows in my hair for some idiotic reason. I hurt myself midcheer on my second cheer and barely made it through a very sloppy third cheer before running to the back and crying in her arms. Needless to say, I did not make the squad that year and didn't tryout again until I was going into high school. My efforts proved good enough and I made it that year. But I do not think that I would have without my Nanny sitting out in the yard with my friends and I for hours working on our motions, dance routine and stunts and telling me when I needed to do something again because it was not right yet. She pushed me hard but was always there to lean on when I need it after a long hard day of falling flat on my face trying to land a backhandspring. By the way, I had the worst tumbling ever. No matter how much I sucked, she kept paying for my lessons because she knew it is what I wanted to do.

Cheerleading was our thing. When I didn't make the squad in the 10th grade, she asked me what I wanted to do from there. I told her I didn't want to give it up, and that I wanted to join a non- school competitive squad. A very expensive venture to say the least. But she went all in on her own and paid for everything so that I could do what I wanted. We drove to Jacksonville three times a week for practice and took me to all my away competitions to places like Nashville and Atlanta. Those road trips are some of the best memories I have with my Nanny and I will never forget them.

Nanny was always on my side no matter what. She would tell me when I was wrong for sure, but she always took my side when another adult in the family had beef with me and often got that person to see reason. When I was 14 I met this guy who was much older than I. He was five years older than me and had already graduated high school. Unfortunately, I fell down a long hard black hole for this guy even though I knew it was not allowed. I couldn't help it though. I was young and stupid and I saw him and he was what I wanted. I kept him a secret for a while and then my dad found out about him. Of course, the only expected reaction was deathstar con 5 meltdown and he was so mad at me. The only person who would even talk to me for the rest of that day was my Nanny. She wanted to know everything about him and if I was sure about him. She was the only one who got through to my dad, she made him change his mind from wanting to send me away to a tall tower in the forest to, "I'll meet him but I am making no promises." I am sorry to say that he let me go through with that one. But, if I hadn't dated Bryant, I never would have learned the greatest lesson that I have come by so far in life.

There was a time in my life when I actually lived with my Nanny and Papa. My Dad was with someone who I didn't care for as a stepmom and our differences were so vast and hateful that I felt I could no longer live around her. My dad, who was at a loss of what to do for trying to make the both of us happy, let me go live down at my Nanny's house as I requested. It's not like I moved away to a different state, which is why I think he was okay with it. But she opened up her home to me and cooked and fed me, took me to practice, bought my school clothes, made my bed every morning, etc. Of course, this is stuff she already did when I was living with Daddy, but I was there every night. We would stay up late drinking our Diet Cokes (both of our favorite drink) and watch our shows The Bachelor, American Idol, Deal or No Deal, and Survivor. Papa had to drag both of our butts out of bed in the morning when it was time for us to wake up. They are lucky I was too big to sleep in their bed, which I did up until I was like 13. They were both shocked when I started sleeping in the other room on my own. I think they were relieved that they didn't have to kick me out.

When I think about my Nanny I think of that Taylor Swift song called The Best Day. If anyone could make a song about our life together, it would be this one. Starting out when I was very young, she was always there for me. We played all day long outside in the garden and by the pond. She took me everywhere that she went. She would come pick me up early from daycare or let me skip it that day altogether, and take me to the office where I would nap on their old leather couch with the uncomfortable buttons that left marks on my face. She videoed everything we did together, from singing "When you Wish Upon a Star" to making sand castles for my cousin Jason and I and laughing when he would smash them down and get so excited that he would shake. She always sang to me. We love the oldies, my favorite song was Love Potion Number Nine and we played it every time we drove anywhere. My favorite videos of us are the ones where she is talking to me and getting me to sing. They are so innocent and cute and make me remember the little girl that still lives in my heart. As I grew older and my problems became more than a lost toy, she was there for me. She still listens to me when I call her from college after a bad test grade or a crappy day at work. When I feel like there is nobody else, I know my Nanny is always there for me. She knows exactly what to say for what I need to hear.

My Nanny had my back from day one. She always made sure I was dressed to the nines in Ralph Lauren and Guess. Seriously, I was the cutest kid ever. Yeah, that's right, I went there. I always had a ponytail with a huge scrunchie or bow and smelled like her Vavoom hairspray because she took time from her getting ready in the morning to get me looking just as good as she did. We did everything together. I wouldn't have it any other way, and I don't think she would either. I grew up so lucky, my best friend lived mere feet away from me.