Watching TV With Grandma

When I lived alone, my only television viewing options were 2 channels – CBS any time and ABC on days with no wind, meaning that I was able to watch ABC only about 3 days last year – the Midwest is not conducive to antennas. 

So when I moved in with one of my daughters and her husband, because my tiny granddaughter still sleeps a lot, I investigated the plethora of channels available to me. One of the Nanny shows might be helpful – even though I have already raised 4 kids and have cared for numerous other children, including my own grandchildren. But, I reasoned, I love to learn and I am always open to learning new ways to guide children, so I started watching one of the Nanny shows.

My newest granddaughter, at 3 months, enjoys watching home renovation shows with me.

Everything was going well until a baby cried – not in a whimpering pay-attention-to-me kind of way, but in an all-out nobody-ever-feeds-me-I’ve-been-born-into-the-wrong-family-and-I’m-scared-to-death kind of way. 

My newest granddaughter empathizes when she hears other babies cry. Their pitiful cries bring her to tears every time, and not in the same way that vacuums scare her to tears – she has no compassion for vacuums. When she hears babies cry, she drops the corners of her mouth, sticks out her lower lip, and cries that quivering cry that tells you she is oozing with compassion, so please take care of that baby – now.

Lesson learned – no more Nanny shows for us. Instead I turned my attention to the HGTV channel. I had seen a couple of Fixer Upper and Property Brothers shows on Netflix (I even wrote about the cruelty of the Property Brothers {on a comedy site – don't worry}), but now I could watch LOTS of home renovation shows – ALL DAY LONG if I wanted, and I wouldn’t have to worry about how they would be affecting my granddaughter! 

Like watching caterpillars transform into magnificent butterflies, even the most damaged homes metamorphose into beautiful showplaces thanks to the construction and design crafters. What could possibly be wrong with introducing her to those kinds of shows? 

Sorry I asked that question, because I began to wonder – is my granddaughter paying too much attention to those shows? Is she learning how to demolish and rebuild homes just by watching TV with me? 

What if, when she learns manual dexterity, she decides to take a hammer to all the walls in her house? Will my daughter and her husband blame me? Or will they thank me? They have been talking about getting rid of the two tiny division walls that sit between the dining area and the living room anyway.

Hmm, I’d better consider the consequences…I might be paving the way for a future Flintstones Bam Bam!

In my own defense, I have to add that I'm usually crocheting when I'm not holding her, and she seems to be fascinated with what I'm "building" too, so maybe she'll be interested in learning lots of creative skills!

Funny Things Grandkids Say, Part ? (I’ve lost count)

Inside the many blogs I’ve written on My Heart Blogs to You sit cute and funny things my kids and grandkids have said over the years. One blog I almost forgot to write is this short story:

A little background first – if you are reading this blog for the first time, I need you to know one thing – I forget things – a lot. So when I remember them, I often blurt out, “Oh!” because that’s the first word that pops into my head.

So on this particular day, while I was talking to three of my grandchildren, and I forgot what I was talking about, I blurted out my customary, “OH!” when I remembered what I wanted to say. 11-year-old Audrey immediately broke into song, “Say Can You See!”

And now, on a more solemn note, I leave you with this memory:

Kid Crushes and Puppy Love

One of my 8-year-old grandsons told me yesterday, with a gigantic smile on his face, that he had a crush on a little girl who was “perfect” for him.

“Is she in your grade?” I asked.

“She’s in my class!” He was exuberant.

“How is she perfect?” I wanted to know.

“She’s polite and she plays sports,” he responded.

“Does she like you, too?”

“I think so. One of my friends asked me if I liked her, because he said she liked me. We smile at each other a lot.”

“I wish I could see what she looks like.”

“You can! My mom found her.”

“On Facebook?”

All he had was a last name. 100,000 other people had the same last name. But Facebook apparently looks through all of your friends and their friends and dwindles the top contenders down to less than a dozen. He found her mom, but I couldn’t access her photos unless I friended her. Smart mom. I like this little girl already.

Then my grandson remembered that he had a picture of her on his iPad. She looks very sweet. He was smiling proudly as he showed me her photo.

“Who knows? Maybe when you’re older, you’ll be able to date her.”

“My dad said that my sisters aren’t allowed to kiss a boy until they’re 19, but I can kiss a girl whenever I want to, and my Mom said, ‘What? No!’” He and his sisters laughed.

Add another 8 years to the 8 years he’s been living, and he’ll be driving a car and possibly dating his kid crush – or they’ll be attending each other’s sporting events. Either way, Grandma will be watching!

Laughing in the Ozark

Last year, my daughter won a week at a timeshare in the Ozark, so she invited my son and me to join her, her husband, and their daughter. The area was beautiful. Outside any bedroom window and from the deck you could see the lake.

Every morning I would awaken before anybody else, quietly make the coffee, and slip onto the deck with my laptop and coffee in hand. After a while I would hear the bustling from the condo, usually as a result of  7-year-old Myraiah finding my son’s candy pumpkins and Greg confiscating them and hiding them from her again and again. They both played hide ’n seek with those pumpkins the whole time.

The only problem with the condo was that it had only 3 bedrooms. My daughter and son-in-law took the master bedroom, my granddaughter was supposed to sleep in the middle room with the bunk beds, and the last room at the other end of the condo was left for my son and me to share – it held two queen beds and a bathroom.

Myraiah didn’t want to sleep alone though, so she shared my queen bed with me. And she complained about the bed, which sounded with every move like boulders rolling over cellophane-covered crackers – without the box.

So while my son and I were talking and moving on our separate beds, we would hear Myraiah, who was trying to sleep, say, “SHHHH!”

And we would laugh. And she would get angry and reprimand us again, which would cause us to laugh even harder, which would cause her to SHHHH even more vehemently.

“I mean it! Stop it!” she scolded. And then to my son, she added, “I’ll take away your pumpkins.”

Well, that caused us to roar with laughter. So I told her she could probably get better sleep if she slept in the bunk bed room, but she flatly refused to sleep alone.

The following night she got aggravated with my son and me again for laughing and decided she wanted to sleep with Mommy and Daddy. So we told her it was OK, but she argued that the room was too far away.

“It’s just down the hall,” I told her. “It won’t take you long to get there.”

“Yes, it will,” she argued.

“No, really, it won’t. You can be there in seconds.”

And she responded, “But not if you go in slow motion.”

My son and I exploded with laughter. 

A Week With Good Guys, Bad Guys, and Monsters

Every morning for the past eight days while their parents vacationed in Mexico, I made breakfast for 3 of my grandkids. On mornings when no clouds filled the sky, the Sun greeted me in their kitchen, not in a soft, “hello – good morning” kind of way, but in a “GOOD MORNING! HERE’S A HEADACHE” way. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE the Sun, but not when its rays penetrate my eyes so deeply they blind me to the point where I can see nothing else. Here is what the kitchen looked like as I felt my way to the sink, counter, and stove.

Sun Through Window

You might be asking, “Why didn’t you close the blinds or the drapes?” Good question. The problem is that my daughter and son-in-law have no window coverings in their kitchen, so I had to walk around the kitchen backwards and cover my eyes as I walked around. Sitting at the snack bar didn’t help, either, because the sun reflected off the gleaming silver refrigerator. And in the evenings, when I made dinner, the sun shone through the western window and reflected off the refrigerator, so standing at the snack bar counter was just as blinding. I went through more Advil Migraine this week than I have – ever – and not because of my grandkids, but because of the blinding sun.

Refrigerator Reflection

Five of those days involved getting the kids ready for school, washing dishes, washing clothes, drying clothes, and folding laundry all day, making meals, and then helping the two older ones with homework when they returned home from school. One of them had so much homework that long after Nolan completed his homework, Audrey spent THE ENTIRE AFTERNOON AND EVENING completing hers. What kind of teacher sends kids home with so much homework that all they can do is work work work work work? 

Audrey doing homework (as always) while Nolan and Avery play electronics.

I once had a teacher in fourth grade who sent me home with so much homework that I spent every afternoon and evening until bedtime doing it. My mother hated how time-consuming it was, but I don’t think she ever complained to Mother Superior about it. With my flashback to that time in my own life, I found myself getting angry at Audrey’s teacher for being so ignorant of the fact that a fifth grader shouldn’t have to spend 6 hours a night doing homework.

Avery's Drawing of Monsters and Bad Guys

Anyway, during the day I spent time with Avery, playing with stuffed animals, coloring, playing hide ’n seek, etc. I found this drawing behind her door and asked her what it was. One day she told me it was monsters. When I asked her if she named her monsters, because I saw letters above them, she said, “No, Grandma, those are just letters.” OK. A couple of days later, though, when I mentioned the monsters, she said they weren’t monsters – they were bad guys, so now I know who the monsters are!

And the good guys? My grandkids, of course! They seriously were so good, the week went by almost too quickly! It was so much fun, but it was also exhausting. I slept for 10 hours last night.