Afternoons with the Grands

Most weekend afternoons I spend with my three grandkids. No one was sick this time, which is rare lately, so lots of energy all around. My grandson is four years old, has "spiky" blond hair (he used to be a strawberry blond, but now he's a beach blond), young "Brad Pitt" good looks and is already a computer and gamer "techie." On his 4th birthday he got his very own ipad and he can whiz through all his games (many are learning games) at record speed. He knows all the "techie" jargon and I listen to him in awe, because I don't know all that much about computers and gaming.

Whenever I visit, my grandson shows me his latest game (I think for ipad most games are only a couple dollars, so he has bunches of them). He often asks, "Nana, did you have this game when you were a kid?" "Nope," I always tell him. So he turns to his Mom (my daughter and only child) and asks her the same question. "No, sweetie," she says. "We didn't have those kind of games when I was a kid." My daughter was born in '77, so she remembers how primitive computers and computer games were during her childhood. Anyway, my grandson always looks at us with puzzlement, he can't imagine a world without ipads, cell phones, digital cameras, DVDs, CDs and Wii. So I sit there and watch his latest games, usually something about cooking, because he wants to be a Chef when he grows up. His Daddy and Grandpa are the cooks in their respective households, so he thinks Moms and Nanas don't know how to cook.

Today's game had something to do with making breakfast. Pancakes and toast and waffles and fruit and juice and everything you can imagine. Then he added, "But Nana, this is the best part, it's gross." Yep, the "gross part" is that he can add bugs, frogs, worms, spiders, just about any kind of creepy crawly to the digital breakfast. "And then Nana," he says, "you have to eat it." He proceeded to tell me that when he "cooked" breakfast for his Daddy this morning he put a frog on the pancakes and his Daddy ate it. Yep, there's a button you touch that says "Eat" and then you tap the screen with your finger and the food disappears while you listen to gobbling sounds. Ahhhhh!!!! So these are the kinds of games a four year old boy likes?

Within minutes the girls are up from their nap. They're 18 month old identical twins, strawberry blonds with big blue eyes and award winning smiles. Their eyes lite up when they see the ipad and their little fingers join in the game and start tapping the screen. My guess is these two will be little "techies" too. Daddy is a CIS Engineer, so I guess the kids come by it naturally. As the digital food gets gobbled up the twins shriek in delight and my grandson laughs at the girls' antics.

For now, the girls call their brother "Lolo" or "Bubba." They absolutely will not say his real name although it's a pretty easy one. So he tells the girls, "Follow Bubba" and they take off after him into the playroom. Yep, these kids have an actual playroom with every toy imaginable, including a wii and a wooden train table set. The girls, I'll just call them Baby1 and Baby2, because we all call both of them "Baby." They know their own names, but the girls call each other "Baby" too so we all just follow suit. First off, the Kids Bop music CDs come on. Bubba loves to dance. He says, "Nana, I have to dance, I have dancing feet." So I pretty much have him pegged to grow up and be a "Dancing Chef" who has all his gourmet recipes available on the ipad-of-the-future. The girls have dancing feet too.

Hmm! Now what are the girls going to be? They jabber away non-stop in a mixture of "twin talk" and real words, the important words like, "read book" (I read them lots and lots of books),  "draw car" (they love to have me draw pictures for them on their drawing pads), "wait for me" (one is always rushing ahead of the other to get somewhere fast), "outside" (outside is always better than inside), "dinosaur" (Bubba has dinosaurs and some of their favorite books are about dinosaurs) and "bye-bye." They each hoist a Disney purse over their shoulders, grab up whatever baby doll or stuffed animal is nearby, pick up a drawing pad with the other hand and say "Bye-bye" as they're heading for the front door. The girls have a darling southern accent and award-winning smiles, so I'm thinking their career of choice will be "Southern Belles."  Their "Mom-Mom" (not "Mommy") was a quiet, serious child and is now a CPA, so no, the twins don't take after her. They got their strawberry blond hair from me, their dimples from their other grandmother, but their "wild-child" shrieks of laughter and winning smiles are all their own.

On my visits I pretty much just sit on the playroom floor and let the action go on around me. I had back surgery a few years ago and have osteoarthritis and a degenerative back disease, so it's best that I don't pick up those heavy babies all that often. But what can I do when they raise their arms and say "Nanaaaaa..." Which of course is a plea for me to pick up a baby (I think about 24 lbs each right now). The girls are little whirlwinds. They move so fast and can leave a wake of destruction (a genuine mess) in their path. Until recently, Bubba referred to the girls as "Destructo Babies." But the girls are learning to be more careful with Bubba's books and puzzles and other things now, so they're no longer "Destructo Babies." Bubba tells each of them in turn, "You are an adorable baby" and, of course, each baby just beams.

Well, now I'm reclining on the couch with my feet propped on a pillow and the laptop in my lap. I took a pain pill (Vicodin, like "House" takes on TV) a couple hours ago, so I'm doing okay. All day Monday I'll need more pain pills and possibly into Tuesday. So I'll have to take it easy for two days and rest my back. By the weekend I'll be ready for more "Afternoons with the Grands."