Here's the truth about my two small grandchildren: I miss them terribly when I don't see them for several days. I call them up, and endure them saying, "I'm going to give the phone to Mommy, okay, Bobbie?"
But when I have them all to myself, I am a little ... bored.
Take yesterday. I drove across the Golden Gate Bridge to Marin County, where my daughter lives, picked up 4-year-old Maggie, and then went to pick up her sister, Ryan, from first grade. It was a brilliant fall day, and the three of us hung out on the playground, eating from their leftover lunches, throwing the Frisbee to the dog, and talking about books — the school was having a Book Fair, and Ryan kept running in and out describing the books she couldn't live another day without.
Maggie did her magic trick, producing a yellow ball from her sleeve, over and over.
And me? What did I do with my coveted afternoon with the girls I had missed like crazy? I sat with my back to a tree and kept sneaking peeks at a tedious article in my copy of the Columbia Journalism Review. I wished I hadn't lost my cell phone so I could call someone. I didn't listen when Maggie told me how to say Abacadrabra! and kept having to be corrected.
When I have them at the house it's the same: I wait for them, run out to the sidewalk to yank them personally from their car seats, and then I hear the siren call of my life — e-mail, manuscript pages, books, work. The idea of sticking in a DVD comes into my head, though I try not to do that.
| Are your grandchildren ever boring? |
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Yes, but don't tell them I said so 16.9%
Sometimes, but I don't care 42.2%
No, they're endlessly fascinating every second 40.9%
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God, I love them! God, their games are boring! I have actually caught myself repeating to my husband
something funny that Maggie said — like, "I don't like the coldestness of snow but I like the whitedness" — and enjoying it more in the telling than in the moment I heard it.
It was the same way when my own kids were small. Actually, it was worse. They swam, I read. They prattled, I said "uh, huh" once in a while when it seemed appropriate. Yet I missed them terribly, too, when they were with their dad, and at those times, I bored other people talking about them.
Yet I know that one of the jobs of grandchildren is to slow you down. To get you to drive to Marin County on a gorgeous afternoon, and taste the sweetness of a leftover lunch banana, and to remind you that a yellow ball produced from a sleeve is magic, every time.
Now that I think of it, I do play more now. I am more willing to dress dolls, and to play endless games of checkers. I have already learned how fast it zips by, and next thing you know it your towhead is a rent-paying grown-up herself.
You may not focus on them every moment, but your grandkids are always watching you. Are you being a good role model? Also: Find our tips for making unforgettable memories with the kids and consider how much your grandchildren are just like you.
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