!!!!!!GRANDDAUGHTERS ARE THE BEST!!!!!!
Friday, January 1st, 2010 at 11:38 am ©GRANDDAUGHTERS ARE THE BEST
Let me describe what is going on just as I sit at this keyboard. My wife Linda and I are at our son’s and his wife’s home in Little Rock for a few days between Christmas and New Years. [By the way, my son –Bryce- married way “up” with his Lori; I am proud of him!] This is a very attractive two story home in a comfortable subdivision on the western edge of this relatively small, still pretty City in the center of our State. He has “stressed” oak hardwood flooring on the first floor (I assure you this is relevant!) which enables his three adorable little girls to do things, Christmas-time children things, that they would not possibly be able to do, or even think of, if the home were carpeted—as are most new homes.
There is a continuous pleasant but sometime grating “screech” (cacophony?) of giggling, clatters, laughing, shrieks and other noises I cannot even begin to identify. Ella, age three, and Bryleigh, age two, are just now playfully wrestling in the den under, over and around the jumbo-sized pillows of one of the two huge white (!) sofas. Every now and then, one of these little ones will tumble down to the floor, roll over and instantly jump back up and resume the playful wrestling as if there had never been an interruption. Josie (Josephine), age ten, has new plastic-wheeled roller skates and has figured out that if she starts skating in the kitchen, moves a few of the toys (including a couple of bicycles), and asks her Mom to close one of the pantry doors, she has created the almost perfect “Rollerdrome”—which if it had banked turns would have been just as those in our youth usually featured swinging elbows, scraping falls, knee pads, a few punches and a lot of pulled hair. This day—just after Christmas 2009, it just means that Josie has a great oval course to practice her racing skills! It’s no big deal to see such a young lady skating between the standing adults as they discuss one thing or another. That is what granddaughters do. Not just at Christmas time!
Several times in the last half hour or so Ella has come over and asked me if I wanted to “share” something with her. Clearly, I said I would be glad to do so, and it has turned out that she wanted to have her “Grampy” eat a couple of the small sections of her newest favorite food, i.e., tangelos! I assured her that they are “yummy” and I was so glad that we could eat this wonderful delicacy together. I actually do like tangelos, and this was no “sacrifice” just to make my elfin little girl happy. At one point she ran over to her “Nana”, Linda, to tell her that Grampy and she were eating the “little orange” together!
Bryleigh has determined that her old Grampy can hold her in his lap and hug her as he types on the “ ‘puter” (a long “U” vowel sound). Everyone ought to try this; it really is great fun, especially when the coincident hugs and kisses will obviously lead to stains on Grampy’s nice new Christmas shirt which may or may not come out. Who cares? She jumps down and wants to again try out her new bicycle, and she and I spend eight or ten minutes trying to figure out how to place the safety helmet on her head, “just so.” She then drops it to the floor and forgets about it. As it turns out, at first she tries to fool me a little, as she sits upon her sister Ella’s bike. The quick “giveaway” was that her feet will not quite reach the peddles! Well, we remedy that; I place her over on the bike which by now I figure out is obviously hers. Then I see that she needs a little push to overcome her initial zero inertia. I push her a tiny bit—and conclude quite quickly that she does not have quite enough strength relative to the size of her new bike! She will grow into it very shortly!
OH! I was just hit by a double team block or tackle—who knows what it would be called at this age. They (Ella and Bryleigh) both landed in my lap and ended up taking turns acting as the load of my “swinging pendulum” arms which, of course, ended up with their falling slowly down onto the floor. There were the expected three or four “just one more time” requests from each of these little cherubs!!!!
After a few hours, my son and his wife left to go a New Year’s Eve Party, and I was a most predictable “patsy” for the “babysitter crying and screaming” that quickly ensued when each of the little ones realized their parents were gone. Linda, always the better one at “disciplining children” and getting through the tears, gets the two of them calmed down in just a couple of minutes.
Later one or both of the little ones wanted to watch the movie on DVD entitled “How The Grinch Stole Christmas.” And I was quickly reminded why I have believed over the past several years that female grandchildren are the most fun…and charming for us old folks. As we were all watching this endearing “Christmas Spirit” movie, I leaned back on the cushions of one of the super soft sofas, and I noticed that after a very short while, both Ella and Bryleigh were resting their heads on my chest watching it. How sweet is that…even accounting for my “sap” factor! Now, really? How could it get any better than that?
Don Switzer
Rogers, Arkansas
Tags: "The Grinch Stole Christmas", 2009, Arkansas, baby sitter, Bicycle, Bike, Bryce, Bryleigh, cherubs, Christmas, crying, double team block, Ella, granddaughters, grandsons, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Jose, Josephine, Little Rock, Lori, Motion picture, movie, New Year's Eve, patsy, pendulum, pillows, plastic-wheeled, race, race track, roller skates, Rollerdrome, sap, screech, Season, SOFA, tackle, Tangelos, toys
