Tag Archives: Grandchildren

Yes and No

12 Wednesday May 2010

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Another day, another celebratory meal, another pretty table.

No, not really.  Yesterday’s birthday dinner was more than just another whatever.  Yesterday, my newest granddaughter Tayler, turned eleven years old.  Yesterday, I worked my fingers, if not to the bone, at least to dry chapped wrinkly skin, to make a meal perfect for a young girl whose name I barely knew two years ago.

How is it that this young  lady can already have claimed a place in my heart?  Is it because, no matter what or when, she always wants to spend the night at her new Nana’s house?  Is it because she has the wisdom to know, at such an early age, how sisters truly make the best of friends — even when they are young kid sisters who have a bent to tell sibling tales to parents with wagging tongues — wisdom it took both her mother and me years — or should I say decades?  —  to realize about our own wonderful sisters?

Pensive one moment, giggly the next, Tayler is a “good egg”, to borrow a favorite expression of my mother-in-law Janice.  Tayler is not afraid to wear her heart on her sleeve.  She asks for what she wants, come what may.  When she goes down in defeat with a circle of ‘no’s’, she bounces right back with a smile and a new plan.

We enjoyed a red banner evening together — spaghetti with red sauce, red velvet cake and her favorite cookies, swirled with red food coloring, that I bake, whenever a grandchild is promised to be in sight.  With two dozen cookies left over, Tayler asked if she could carry them to school today to share with her classmates.  “Of course,” I said.  Mostly, it’s easy to say ‘yes’ to Tayler.

Grandmother’s are better at saying ‘yes’ than ‘no.’  As a parent, I said ‘no’ too many times.  No. No. No.  Sometimes in a string, just like that.  My new grandson Ryan — Tayler’s older brother — wanted another piece of cake.  “Yes,” I said.  His new mother — my daughter, Kate — said “No.”  If I had been Kate, I, more than likely, would have said “No” too.  But I’m thinking the world is filled with too many “no’s”, that it’s up to families to speak the much-needed “yes, yes, yes.”

Of course, my final word last night was “No.”  Predictably, Tayler asked to spend the night.  After a rough night of sleeping, after working all day to make her birthday dinner grand, and with my husband, the disciplinarian, out-of-town, I spoke the safe and sorry ‘No’.

I wish I had said “Yes.”  I wish I had thrown common sense out the window and remembered what it was like to be eleven and spend the night at my Aunt Jo’s or my Aunt Carol’s.   Then maybe I would have said “Yes.”

Tales from the Fridge

10 Monday May 2010

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You can learn a lot about people by looking inside their refrigerators.

Today mine holds a large pot of spaghetti sauce full of meatballs, telling of tomorrow’s birthday dinner for my soon-to-be eleven year old granddaughter.  But other than this, there’s very little going on within the main stage.  Hardly no leftovers.  I’ve had such little interest in cooking, we’ve been eating out more than in.

This morning, it was the contents within our refrigerator door that captured my attention.  It began with the two bottles of fruit juice.  Bosom buddies of the elderly —  Grapefruit and cranberry juice — sure signs  that the house is inhabited by people entering their so-called ‘golden years.’  Back in the day of my youth, it was orange banana strawberry for me.  Or something else on the order of sweet.

These days, buttermilk is a staple in our fridge.  My husband uses it for his biscuits.  I use it for my chicken fry steak.  And tomorrow morning, I’m going to try to make Miss Tayler a Red Velvet Cake with it.

My mother was famous for her Red Velvet Cake, which she frosted with a short-hand version of German Chocolate Cake Frosting, holding back the pecans and coconut.

My grandchildren must believe that all grandmothers are created equal — that if Grandma Carol could bake red cake, that surely their Nana can as well.  And though my version looks like red cake, I can’t ever seem to get it out of the oven at just the right time.

As it approaches being done, I check it faithfully.  Toothpick in.  Wet.  Toothpick in.  Gooey.  Toothpick in.  Dry as a bone.

But God bless their little bones — their little hearts and especially their tummies.  Chock full of youthful bliss, as ones who surely believe in the goodness of orange strawberry banana or some other concoction of sweet juice, they consider this Nana’s red cake simply divine.

To Grandma’s House

23 Tuesday Mar 2010

Posted by in Life at Home, Mesta Park

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My youngest granddaughter needed a place to hang her hat today.

Karson fell ill Sunday evening;  it’s nothing infectious, but Karson didn’t feel up to attending school.   Or so I understood, from my oldest daughter’s phone call yesterday.  In fact, I’m pretty sure I heard Kate say Karson would likely sleep or lay around all day, same as yesterday.

To Karson’s mother, I say, “Liar, liar pants on fire.” (Forgive me — but since I just spent the last twenty-four hours with a rambunctious kindergartner, certain playground sayings are, for now, uppermost in my mind and at the tip of my fingers.)

Though not exactly in peak form, Karson and I did all the things we normally do when we spend time together.  We watched a little television.  Karson painted with watercolors while I painted with words.  We shared a couple of meals amidst fine table conversation with the television shut off.   And best of all, we walked down to our neighborhood park.

It was a great day to go, with temperatures hovering in the mid-seventies and blue skies overhead.  Karson and I arrived  —  with a handsome gray tomcat in tow that we picked up along the way — to a dozen children enjoying the sunshine and playing on playground equipment.  Children were being pushed in swings by parents and caught at the end of slides, the way I once pushed and caught Karson, when she was toddling around.

Karson no longer needs me to catch or push her.  In fact, she’s growing up fast.  Over lunch today, I learned that six-year-old Karson has had a boyfriend for well over a year.  I forgot his name, but I imagine he’ll be replaced sooner or later.

But today, with no boyfriend in site (not counting our Tom), Karson played independently or formed playground partnerships with other children — a variation of you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours — which obligated Karson to push one girl on the inter-tube swing in exchange for that girl pushing Karson on the swing.

That little girl wore a pair of  Dorothy’s ruby red slippers —  just like the ones I bought Karson a year ago.  Evidently, as deep once called to deep in biblical times, today on the playground, it was like finding like.

I confess to losing my Nana mojo, as I forgot to bring any liquid refreshment to the park for thirsty hard-playing girls.  So after hitting all the rides, we left for home, dropping Tom off along the way.  Unlike some, this guy believed in leaving the party with the girls he came with.   His mother evidently raised him right.

I suppose I should feel flattered by Karson’s attempts to stay another day.  But instead of feeling flattered, I feel flattened by that 39 pound steam-roller of a granddaughter.  I praise God she was not running full steam ahead.