Raising Grandma Sheila
By Sheila Moss, San Fernando Branch
“Grandma, you’re not listening to COUNTRY MUSIC, are you?” asked twelve-year-old Ariana as she and her little sister Alyssa dumped their backpacks on the foyer and rushed to hug me.
“Why, yes. I have the stereo set to either country or classical—CC quite easy to remember.”
“No offense, Grandma, but we’re going to be here for four days and that’s not going to make the cut.” Pushing some buttons Ariana found FM 98.7 Alternative Rock from iHeart Radio. To my ears the music was awful.
But if music soothes a beast, it can also make my grandkids happy. I’ll just consider it Music Appreciation.
“Let’s get you settled,” I said. “Ari, you get the sofa bed in the computer room. Alyssa, you have Uncle Dave’s old room.”
Alyssa was sporting a bright pink cast on her left foot, having broken her toe while doing a cartwheel in the family room. She would need the extra room the double bed would provide. No, I didn’t ask why she was doing a cartwheel in the family room. There are some questions which Grandmas know not to ask.
“What do you want to do?” I asked.
“Make banana muffins, of course,” chorused the girls. Whenever the grandchildren visited, we baked. While we were waiting for the muffins to be done, nine-year-old Alyssa pondered the math. “If we want to take home four muffins for our family, how many can we eat during our stay here?”
“Well, start with the twelve and subtract four … ,”
“That’s old school, Grandma,” Ari interrupted.“Now we use the new math. We need to set up an
equation.”
Wonders! We did come up with the same answer. What to do next? “Let’s play a board game. Your father liked Monopoly and now I had an updated version, the Wizard of Oz. It features Evil Witches, an enchanted forest, flying monkeys and a popup of the city of Oz.”
Alyssa became engrossed but after half an hour, Ari begged out, “Candy Crunch is more fun. We can teach you.”
I shook my head. “Those techie games don’t interest me.”
Luckily it was almost time for my nap. Their parents had warned them that Grandma got grouchy if she didn’t have her afternoon nap. “I’m setting the timer for forty minutes. You can read or watch TV.”
Ari looked down at me and said, “Doctors say that a thirty-minute nap is sufficient; otherwise you won’t sleep at night.”
“It takes me ten minutes to fall asleep so that’s not a problem.” Back in the bedroom I dreamed of pink casts dancing in my mind. It wasn’t long before I felt a presence. Startled, I woke up to see Alyssa beaming.
“It’s time to wake up.”
Just then my cell phone rang. “I’ll bet it’s our Dad,” cried Ari as I fumbled to unearth my phone.
“Yes, we’re doing fine. Here, let them tell you all about it,” I said.
“Your connection is bad, Grandma. We’ll have to text,” explained Ari.
Before I knew it, the girls were texting, thumbs flying. Ari noticed that I looked lost.
“It’s easy. We’ll bring you into our world.”
“My thumbs are too fat; I can’t type anything.”
“Use my stylus, Grandma,” said Ari.
Dinner time and we were doing linguini and clams. As I was struggling with the garlic press, Ari said her mom gets frozen garlic pods from Trader Joe’s and just defrosts them.
“Now that’s a twentieth-first century innovation I can embrace.”
Four days later, as we hugged our good-byes, I thought I heard Ari whisper to Alyssa, “Our work is done.”