Alexander and the Wonderful, Marvelous, Excellent, Terrific Ninety Days: An Almost Completely Honest Account of What Happened to Our Family When Our Y

Children returning home as adults is becoming commonplace nowadays; usually they don't come back with a wife and three kids. But here comes Alexander of the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Home again, this time with his wife and three kids. The Alexander Five have come to stay for ninety days while their home is being remodeled. They're safely ensconced on the third floor of Judith Viorst's old Victorian but spillover to the rest of the house is inevitable. Now if they can just avoid Judith's beloved velvet-covered furniture.... Viorst shares with us the ups and downs of adjusting to the new living situation. She notes that, "Mothers don't stop being mothers when their children are grown but remain in a state of Permanent Parenthood." So she struggles to keep from offering uninvited advice too frequently and she learns to tolerate "levels of disorder that she thought she couldn't abide." Often she reminds herself that "temporary is good". We can almost hear her teeth grinding together as her composure is challenged. Her love for her family is clear but it vies with her love for order and organization in a brief but entertaining book. She summarizes their time together by saying: "I think I'm a better person for having had this experience but I wouldn't say I'm a different person. I'm better because while they lived here with us, I laughed more and grumbled less...And when I called attention to what, in my view, were endangered-grandchildren situations, I did my very best to speak in tones of concern, not panicked shrieks. Yes, while they were here, I learned that I could live, if I had to live, with the unpredictable. But now that they've left, I'm back to my old routines."

As a new mother-in-law w/a first grandchild, I found this book so useful b/c it helped me to laugh at myself and put the conflicts w/my son and his new family in perspective. A wonderful gift for any new set of grandparents, even if they don't live in the same house for three months!

Judith Viorst, prolific author of scads of books - children's, poetry, popular psychology, and others - has returned, this time with an intimate, tender, and truly funny story of the three months that her youngest son Alexander, his wife Marla, and their three small - five, two, and four months - children moved into the big Washington DC Victorian family home, the empty nest of a contented Viorst and her sage husband Milton, while renovations were being done to their own house. Viorst describes the moving-in, the getting-adjusted, and the myriad changes that five additional people bring to a two-person household. She loves them but it isn't always easy. She holds her tongue. She resists giving helpful advice. She stores the breakables and baby-proofs for real. There are sippy cups, diapering supplies, toys, and brightly-colored clutter where before there had been clean surfaces and carefully-chosen adult things. Viorst enacts rules, forbidding glue, play-dough and the eating of chocolate on the velvet upholstery. On the other hand, she plays with the kids. She sits on the floor and shows her grandchildren how to build houses of cards. She lovingly admires and respects her daughter-in-law (and of course her son) and baby-sits with gusto. There are moments of utter poignancy, for example when granddaughter Olivia queries her grandfather as to who he thinks is the prettiest, she or her grandmother. The answer is pure diplomacy, ("Grandma, because she's my wife") though it's painful at the time. True to herself, she includes sensible and smart observations on marriage and family life along with commentary on today's "hyperparenting" compared to the way she and her husband raised their sons in the 1960's. (Playpens were OK, and, later, they could take any lessons they wanted when they were old enough to ride the bus to and from that lesson). This is a delightful little book, probably ideal for fans of Viorst and for fans of grandchildren. - Eileen Galen