"My Nana lives in the Woods"

"My Nana lives in the woods." Those were my grandson's words when he introduced me to his PreK4 school friends on Grandparents' Day on Friday. His best friend added, "Do you really live in the woods?" Hey, what could I say? Apparently four year olds think it's cool to have a Nana/Grandma who lives in the woods. "Yes," I said.

Now I don't really live in the woods. I live near the tip of a long wooded peninsula that juts into Pensacola Bay on the Florida Panhandle. So I guess you could call it living in the woods. Just down the road is the Naval Live Oaks National Park, and since my yard has two of those ancient old Naval Live Oaks, plus bunches of other old oaks, then I'm sort of living in the woods. My grandson, you see, lives in a "new" three-years-old neighborhood of big modern brick houses on a circular street with very few trees. So in comparison, our house, built in 1971, is surrounded with huge trees, an assortment of ferns and palms, azaleas, gardenias, camellias, plus wisteria, jasmine and other flowering vines. So our brick house does sort of look like it's in the woods.

My grandson loves all the greenery and, when he does come to our house for a visit, he spends all of his time in our backyard looking at the trees, flowers, butterflies and birds. We move the patio table and a couple chairs into the shade of two tall White Oaks. My grandson asks me the names of the different birds: Cardinals, Doves, Robins, Sparrows, Wrens, Finches, Blue Jays, Mockingbirds, Hawks and an occasional Great Blue Heron who flies overhead now and then. He listens to the birds' melodious songs and "sings" the songs back to them. He loves when the birds respond. He also loves the hawks best because they swoop down out of the trees and chase the other birds.

Anyway, I was a hit on Grandparents' Day. In fact, several of the four year olds asked if I would be their Nana too. So, of course, I agreed. I could be a Nana to all of them. Their teacher asked if I would consider volunteering from time to time, helping with art projects, because Bubba's other Nanny/Grandma told the teacher that I like to do art. So I agreed to volunteer now and then, and Nanny did too.

On Saturday I spent all day with the grandkids at their house. The twins were little whirlwinds. I can't believe how much energy two 18 1/2 month olds can generate. Bubba refers to the girls as "wild babies." And they are definitely wild. They understand "No, no, no!" But does that stop them? No way! They smile sweetly and continue on with whatever they were doing. So you have to follow up the "No" by taking away whatever it was that they weren't supposed to put into their mouths, or bodily removing them from whatever you told them not to do. Because "No, don't do that" or "No, get down from there" doesn't stop them. These two are climbers and they scramble over the wooden arms of the futon couch in the playroom or climb to the back of the leather living room couch. They definitely inherited this climbing trait from their Mama.

On Saturday my grandson continued the green thing. He said, "Nana, you know how green is my favorite color?" I nodded, "Yes, darlin', I know." Then he asked, "So what I want to know is, what makes the grass green?" Oh, no, a science question! I explained something about how the sun and chlorophyll make the grass green. He repeated this newest word, "chlorophyll," and said he liked that. Then he asked, "Is that why the tops of the trees are green?" I assured him that's why all the trees and plants were green. Maybe this little guy, with all the questions, is going to be a botanist some day?

Bubba's next question was, "Nana, why do I have freckles on my nose?" I gave him the answer my Mom always gave me, "That's from the sun kissing you on your nose." That cracked him up. "Nana," he pointed out, "the sun doesn't have lips." I assured him the sun didn't need lips to kiss him. So then he said, "So why doesn't the sun kiss the babies?" I told him the sun usually waits until the babies turn into toddlers. He was satisfied with that answer. He hasn't yet commented on all my freckles, but I remember these same freckle questions when his Mama was about the same age. I also remember one day when my daughter was trailing her finger along my arm and out of curiosity I asked her what she was doing. "I'm connecting the dots," she said. So I'm wondering when the grandkids will decide "to connect the dots." Aren't freckles fun?

Anyway, as the day progressed, I fielded more of Bubba's numerous questions. "Nana, do your dogs drink out of the toilet?" Now where did that one come from? "No," I said, "I don't let them do that." It turns out one of Bubba's school friends has a dog who drinks out of the toilet and he thought that was pretty funny. He wanted to know if the dogs he had when he was a baby drank out of the toilet. "Nope." I explained they were Yorkies and too small to reach the toilet. Those Yorkies, by the way, found new homes when the twins came on the scene, because it was just too hard for them to have a household of three babies and four Yorkies. But all the Yorkies found good homes, one of them with Nanny and another with an Auntie and the other two to friends, so that worked out okay. 

Anyway, Bubba had a lot more to say on Saturday. He was acting silly and making the twins laugh and giggle. Then he turned to his Mama and asked, "What do you think?" And she said, "I think you're a silly boy." So Bubba pondered that and announced, "Well, since God made all of us, I guess he made me a silly boy." What can you say to that?

I came back home late Saturday afternoon with lots of questions of my own. What makes little kids ask such profound questions at such a young age? And why do little kids have so much energy? I was exhausted and went to sleep early that night and wondering what questions I'll be asked next.