The six year old explaining the Facts of Grandma to the three year old just now.

I wish they could just stay puppies.

Besides, I have resolved to write something every day, even if it is nattering nonsense. Well, write something here that is, because I did write other things today, but they don’t seem to count even though that was for pay and this is just for me. The other stuff is just to keep the lights on and the keys to the doors in my hand – which is important enough. Little else gets done without those two. Well, and the phone. I have been trying to impress on my granddaughter – as I apparently failed to impress on my daughter – the “poor folks bill paying priorities.” Rent first, then gas and lights, food (if there are children in the house), then phone and whatever is left can be used for clothes and other items. Saving money is in there somewhere, too, but even that is difficult to do until after the basics are taken care of.

She remembers all that now; I just hope the lesson is still rattling around in her head somewhere when she is out on her own.  She’s pretty responsible, if a little dingbatty sometimes, so I think it will be.

My oldest grandson is pretty cool, too. He came and walked me home from the store today, because while I was on my way to the store I almost had a heart attack. Or, at least I thought I was going to. See… there was this dog. Well, two dogs – I don’t know the breed but they looked kinda like Lassie – a collie, I think she was. Shorter hair, but the same markings and long snouts, about the same height, I guess, but wider and very muscular, like pit bulls. And short tails – I looked, because when one of them came bounding across the street toward me I was so hoping to see a wagging tail. But it wasn’t there. Anyway, there it came at a dead run, right at me – and there was nowhere to hide! The dog reached me and first circled around me and then started jumping at me – but not aggressively or anything, just… well I don’t know what it was doing. I was wearing a puffy black and white jacket so maybe it thought I was a cow and was trying to herd me. Who knows. Still, I stood there, petrified, whispering something like “N-n-nice doggie. Nice doggie.”  I even tried to flag down a passing truck, pointing at the jumping creature and mouthing, “Help! There is a dog. Don’t you see? It’s a DOG! And it’s jumping on me!”

It’s possible the man just thought I was crazy having an episode, or trying to get me and “my” dog into his truck to do him harm or something, because he floored it. Obviously he had no idea the terror those three little letters, d-o-g, hold for me. But my grandson did, so when I called (after the dog had gone and I had tottered into the mall, then gone to another store) he came trotting along to provide protection. Because no way was I going back down that same street by myself. He’s only 14 but taller than me, and most important, not afraid of dogs. Of which, of course, by this time there was no sign. He and my granddaughter (also not afraid of dogs) had a good laugh when I told them what had happened, after I was safely in the house.

So. That was my excitement for the day.

[edited to (hopefully) remove ableist language. ]

Then again the six year old has his own issues – in his world (that of a native Californian, I guess) -  Santa and his reindeer live at the North Pool.

I thought that, being the youngest, he would be more apt to talk clearly, because everyone else does. All the rest of them were talking by this time. His mother says it’s because I (and others, surely) spoil him by treating his current language as if it were a real one.

A grandma spoiling the baby. As if.

The combination ennui/foxhole burrowing, even online, is related to my home situation no doubt – I simply have no place to sit and think, to work without constant fear of interruption, or anywhere where I can just close the door and *be*.  As I’ve moaned about before. I used to want to create something new at least every other day – even if I did not act on it. Now, I find myself simply not interested… though I can feel slight movement in that direction whenever I think I’ll have my life back ”soon” – but now I ruthlessly tamp it down, knowing that most likely it will amount to nothing. It’s possible that the situation will be changing soon, maybe as soon as next week, as my daughter has found an apartment for herself and the children - though I doubt a forest of wood would be enough to knock on for having typed that out loud. And, of course, it has not been all bad.

I realized the other day that I have never really been in close proximity to small people, day in and day out. I mean, I had my own daughter but I worked outside the home while she was growing up and after my divorce I was the only provider so I worked even more, and no doubt I missed some stuff. Also, she was an only child so I didn’t get the benefit of seeing the different personalities emerging in different kids of the same family. If that makes any sense.

Now, though, with the two small people in the house today, and having more time to just observe, I find it endlessly fascinating to see how different the two children are in personality, as well as how alike. The 5 year-old is thin as a rail, always moving around, always wanting to do something, always needs people around, seeks outside stimulus and is very anxious for approval. He’s also frightened of bugs and just about every other thing that moves. He talks a mile a minute, loves reading (or being read to, rather)  and big words – I really don’t know where he picks them up from; some from me, sure, but he says stuff that I know I’ve never said to him. He has a wild imagination and lies quite a lot (“We went to the zoo and I fell in the water and went swimming with the giraffes, then the giraffe bit my ankle and I tried to go into the bathroom to look at it and change my clothes, but there was a lady in there having a baby!” is the story he told me last year about his school trip to the zoo. Goddes know where he got all *that* from.)

The 2 year-old is chubby, laid back, laughs at danger, stomps bugs or grabs them in his hand, will occupy himself for hours playing with his toys, if there is no one around to play with him. He  talks a lot, but not very clearly, though mostly we as family can understand him (I’m glad we got rid of cable and, thus, his favorite show, SpongeBob SquarePants, because the child was starting to sound just like Patrick the starfish – which, I guess, is better than sounding like SpongeBob, but, well… you know.) He can count to 20, though, something he apparently learned from Sesame Street and Dora. I think his imagination must also be fairly vivid because right in the middle of doing something (or nothing) his eyes will get big and anxious and if I am sitting down he’ll pull my hands away from whatever I am doing so he can clamber up in my lap to be comforted or feel safe or something.

So, I find these children amazing, sometimes, even if they annoy me often, and I figure I may as well hold on to the experiences, write about them whenever, use them in stories when the time comes and whatever else. Kids do, as they say, grow up so fast and it’s not likely I’ll have another opportunity to interact with small ones in such a close setting once these are back home.

Now, I am not the best cook but usually nothing I put before them produces *that* reaction. On my way to see what was wrong I was able to make out some of the words – their older sister’s name stood out prominently, from which I concluded that she was tormenting them again. Sigh.

I came in and was immediately bombarded with complaints about her perfidy, her sacrilege, her unforgivable action. She had, you see, snatched some food from each of their plates and popped it into her mouth – not that big a deal, normally, but this time…. THIS time, she had crossed the line. This time – she’d taken a sprig of their broccoli. Horrors! Tears! Open-mouthed wails!

Weird kids, my grandchildren. So different in personality and looks, but one thing they all share – this inexplicable love of broccoli. I even offer it as a treat sometimes if they will behave and do this or that thing, because they love it so much. And don’t get me wrong – I, too, like munching on the crunchy springs from time to time. Nothing, though, on the level of these kids.

Anyway, to shut the two-year old up (the five-year old was not far behind him in volume) I had to take them into the kitchen to see the pot full of little green trees that was left to convince the small ones that the world had not ended (or, at least, that the broccoli had not ended) when their sister pilfered their food. (Which she did in the first place just to be annoying, because she had her own perfectly full plate to eat from.)

I think the 2-year-old watches too much TV, though, because once things calmed down and he was back in his seat, worn out from the stress of possibly not having his fill of brocolli, he leaned his head on his hand, gave a world-weary sigh and said, “I need a baba, man.”