Life and jubilant memories with the grands
I asked the grands, who have been here four days while our daughter-in-law recovers from surgery — what I should write about. Not surprising, they want me to write about their adventures at grandma and grandpa's. At ages 10, 9, and 6 — two sisters and a brother — they are among the nicest, happiest kids you'll ever meet. They've learned to mind — to not fight among themselves — to be helpful to each other and everybody else.
I teach them a big word every time they're over. We've mastered ubiquitous and delectable, hooligan and preposterous, reluctant and jubilant, onomatopoeia and menagerie. The oldest didn't miss a beat in December learning onomatopoeia. She said, “Oh, I know what that means. Christmas tree … in Spanish.” She'd be a killer player in that classic game, Dictionary.
We hadn't expected these overnights. So they came with nothing. Since I'm all of 5-foot 2-inches and they are, as their mother says, “from a family of giants” on her side, they are wearing grandma's clothes. Didn't see this coming — swapping out the closet with children's children.
Years ago I bought a thrift store farm set which has been added to over time, and enthralls the grands for hours. We've expanded to jungle animals and forest animals — besides the usual cows and horses, goats and pigs. The 9-year-old established a store with a ferocious lion as proprietor — he named the store, “Don't Come In Here.” Curious creature that I am, I'd probably do it — just to see why I'm not supposed to.
Their grandpa drove them to Cusick to see the tundra swans resting on their migration. They needed “binoculators” as the youngest used to call them — the swans were out there a ways. Mind-boggling for them to see hundreds at once. I always tell the swans to greet my friends in Alaska. Having lived where they're headed makes it personal — how excited we were in the Land of the Midnight Sun to finally see them and know that spring was really going to happen.
Out exploring the forest yesterday the kids came across some deer bones and filled a sack. I'll never forget the summer day their cousin, 6 years old at the time, called from the woods, “Grandma, we found dead bones!” I was up the hill in a hurry.
Maybe some other grandparent has invented playing Candy Land with real candy. It's the hit idea of the past 20-something years I've been one. Today it is chocolate chips and mini marshmallows. Any small candy will do, strewn across the board. Our family holds no one too mature to pass up sugar.
The kids tried standing very still near the bird feeder with sunflower seeds in their hands — determined to entice a little chickadee or junco. I told them about the Easter morning the chickadee hopped along my outstretched leg to my lap, up to my shoulder, onto my head, scratched around in my hair — and then left the way it arrived. A feathered anointing as astonishing as an angel encounter at the empty tomb.
Ah … our son has arrived, whisking away those “hooligans” for a night with dad — taking a break from the hospital. It got awfully quiet awfully sudden. You might say the silence is “ubiquitous.”
They plan to be back tomorrow. Bringing their “jubilant” selves. And muddy shoes. Maybe they'll find another double-decker wasp nest. Or maybe a chickadee really will land on their fingers. As the 6-year-old loves to say, “Just imagine.”