When you’re two years old and your grandma says, “George, wanna go on a date?” you have no idea what she’s talking about, but you nod your head “yes” anyway.
This was the case with our fifth grandchild, “George”. For his spontaneous grandparent/grandchild date, he just wanted to play outside in the snow. He didn’t know about more complex options and I wasn’t about to volunteer them.
Easy, huh?
Well — no. Our date involved an hour of preparation:
- feeding George
- cleaning George, his chair, the table, and the three-foot radius around where George dined
- chasing and wrestling George out of his full-to-capacity diaper
- selecting George’s clothes
- selecting “diff’nt” clothes — George has definite opinions about onesies vs. regular
- chasing and wrestling naked George into clothes
- finding George’s snow pants
- getting snow pants on George
- finding snow pants “Gamma” can wear
- squeezing Gamma into snow pants
- realizing Gamma has to use the bathroom
- peeling snow pants off Gamma, then squeezing them on again
- putting coat on George
- putting coat on Gamma
- putting cap and boots on George
- hot flash — taking coat off Gamma
- putting mittens on George
- finding gloves — George doesn’t like mittens
- putting gloves on George, most of his fingers in one finger space
- putting coat, boots, cap, and gloves on Gamma
George did the snowpant shuffle into the garage and emerged with a shovel and a rake. I shoveled snow. He raked it back on the sidewalk and driveway. Somehow, this made perfect sense to George.
I forgot my iPhone in the house and wasn’t about to rearrange my snow gear to retrieve it, so I tracked mud and snow through the entrance and kitchen. Then I crawled out backwards, wiping the floor with wet paper towels.
Whoever says our masculine or feminine nature is molded solely by our environment should explain George. He came into a pink world of three sisters and foo-foo everything. He won’t have any of it.
I snapped three warm-up pictures before the stars aligned for the perfect shot — and my battery went dead. George was happy. Gammas are more fun with dead phone/camera batteries.While we played in the snow, George’s four-year old sister “Sadie” set up a “su-pwise” for us in the warm house. “It’s weady!” Sadie, adorned in pink and purple flowered jammies and red and green snowman socks, motioned to us from the front door.
“Honey, you’re sick,” she gushed, mothering George out of his snow gear. She pointed to the couch. “There’s your bed. Lay down now and I’ll feed you. Cuz this is a hospital westauwant.”
Sadie had arranged 54 toy dishes, food, and utensils in neat rows on the piano bench and the piano.
“Let me give you your cough sywup,” Sadie poured pretend medicine into a plastic spoon.
George didn’t play sick patient like Sadie had hoped. He dove straight for the dishes like a wrecking ball toward a popsicle stick house.
Sadie stopped gushing. “Lay down or I’ll draw chicken pox on you!”
By the time I confiscated Sadie’s red marker, George had a bad case of marker pox.
“Gwamma! Can you take 
him outside again?” Sadie begged.
Since George pretty much demolished Sadie’s hospital restaurant, Sadie had to be admitted (into what was left of her medical facility). So Gwamma became Sadie’s nurse and the neighborhood reclamation expert.
Later George was banished to quality time with Papa and a wash cloth. The pals watched two and a half minutes (George’s attention span) of This Old House, then loaded toy food and toy dishes into the Tonka truck with the Tonka loader. This included plenty of saliva-spewing sound effects. (George’s saliva, not Papa’s.)
When Sadie’s sisters got home from school, the three females moved the hospital restaurant upstairs.
They quarantined George to stay away — and not because of his marker pox. He didn’t even notice. He just pulled me to the front door, pointed outside and said, “Date?”
Four year old “Sadie” looked forward to this grandpa/grandma/grandchild date ever since we started the tradition with her oldest sibling last August. Six months is a long time to make a four-year-old wait. In fact, she cried a puddle of tears when she learned that her other sister and her cousin (grandchildren #2 and #3) would be in line before her. We hadn’t considered how difficult the concept of seniority would be for a child.
On our car ride to her house, I tapped my husband on the arm and sighed, “This will make a little girl extremely happy.”
On the way to the Mall of America, “Hey! Let’s sing songs! I’ll start. Boom chicka, boom chicka…”
“Hey! Sanks for bringing me to the Mall of the Merika.”
Me: “Absolutely, Sweetheart! Jesus knows the desires of your heart. I’m sure you can have Tree and everything you love — all your blankets and more.”
Recently my husband and I attended a 
Mom lived a modest life. Based upon the world’s standards she’d be considered an utter failure. She didn’t obtain a college degree. She died with no sizeable estate. She never had a powerful job.
Since Minnesota time moves according to the thickness of molasses — teenage amusement ride attendees move much slower in January. By the time we got on and off the Merry-Go-Round, we only had time for one more ride. Tink’s selection: the Hot Air Balloons. We thought we remembered the entrance location. We didn’t. Grandparent’s minds work slower in January, too. We walked the perimeter of the indoor park one and a half times before we found it — at the hour we should have taken her home.
We chose Door #2.
Really, she hasn’t outgrown us. She’s simply distracted. Staying present amongst the diversions in our grandchildren’s lives will simply require more creativity. So, my husband and I formulated a strategic plan, incorporating a tradition of semi-annual Grandpa and Grandma “dates” when each of our grandchildren will be the center of our universe.
While we admired her admiring her bespectacled doll, Ms. Social whispered, “I love you, Grandma. I love you, Grandpa.” This led me to skip–even though Grandpa couldn’t swing me when I lifted my feet.