Tag Archives: grandchildren

Grandson outsmarts grandma — which is not that difficult to do

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My grandsons are the most amazing people I know. You probably believe that your grandchildren (or children if you’re not there yet) are amazing, too. And I bet they are. There is something about this crop of young ‘uns that gives me hope for the future.

Here’s an example:

I stopped by Older Daughter’s house for a bit the other day. Youngest Grandson, a rising first-grader, always claims my phone immediately when I walk in — probably because it’s an iPhone 12 Pro Max that I don’t really understand & it’s out of his Mom’s all-encompassing media-censorship reach so it’s ripe for non-approved game downloading. On this day, I got a hug, handed over the phone & sat down to visit as he left the kitchen with his prize.

He was back again in a couple of minutes.

“Kacky, would you help me with your password so I can get this game? It’s new and I really really really want it,” he said.

Unfortunately, his mom heard him.

“No, Wesley,” she said, firmly, in that voice that always makes me straighten up a little even though she’s not talking to me. “You can’t use Kacky’s password to download games all the time. Give her back her phone & use your own tablet.”

The world held its breath for the next couple of seconds as he thoughtfully considered his options, apparently discarding the nuclear “arguing with Mom” choice (which, obviously, never ends well), and finally decided on a strategy. I couldn’t wait to see what happened next as he shrugged a concessive “OK, Mom” and left the room.

It didn’t take long.

A few minutes later, he returned with his headphones plugged in to his own kid-appropriate tablet. Taking a sip out of my glass of tea, he hopped on my lap & settled in as his mom & I kept chatting.

During a conversation break, he pulled off his headphones & asked me a question.

“Hey, Kacky,” he said, with a studied nonchalance, “I think that game is on my tablet. Would you help me find it?”

With his Mom’s attention diverted elsewhere (one of the dogs? one of the cats? one of the other kids?), I was happy to help.

“Sure, sweetie,” I said. “What’s the name of it?”

He seemed to ponder.

“I’m not sure,” he said. “Maybe look it up in the App Store to see?”

Who could refuse such a reasonable request? We searched, looked up icons & tried to identify the mystery game.

“There it is!” he said. “I knew I had it.”

But, being the helpful (read “naïve & gullible”) grandma that I am, I had to point out that the game had been deleted from his tablet & needed updating.

“Would you do that for me, please?” he said, adding a kiss on my cheek. “I don’t know how.”

And that is how Youngest Grandson did an end-run around all the barriers erected against him & got exactly what he wanted with a minimum of fuss and a brilliantly executed plan.

As I said, my grandsons are amazing.

Running with the family, or “Why is there purple stuff in your ear?”

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There is a way to make your family and friends think you are the coolest person ever AND reap other priceless benefits along the way.

Running.

1 oucWait! Don’t stop reading yet. Those inspiring stories about people whose idea of exercise is walking to the fridge but then they start running and they realize they love it and months later they’re competing in marathons?

Yeah, this isn’t one of those stories.

I strongly dislike running. I mean, it hurts. A lot. And makes your mascara run. I asked a running-fanatic co-worker once why she enjoyed the sport and she got a dreamy look in her eyes and smiled and said, “You know that feeling when you can’t breathe and your legs won’t work and you have to stop by the side of the road to throw up? Gosh, I love that feeling.”

Um, no, thank you.

Besides, have you been at the start line of a race? All those toned abs are intimidating.

This is a story, however, about a kind of running – the fun kind, where you get out with your family on a Saturday morning and spend some time together and get some exercise and end up feeling as if you’ve accomplished something important while still keeping your mascara intact.

2 picI’m talking about fun runs, those one-mile races with more emphasis on “fun” than “run.”

This spring, our daughters and our 7- and 3-year-old grandsons have hit the fun-run circuit. We’ve been pelted with confetti, dug colored cornstarch out of our ears and had a blast.

We none of us are runners (except the 3-year-old, who runs the whole mile without stopping or even breathing hard — I see Olympic medals in his future) and I was apprehensive about our non-athletic status before we signed up for our first race.

But I was being silly. Everybody is encouraging and enthusiastic, and the grins on the kids’ faces as they cross the finish line to cheers and ecstatic high fives are priceless. They may even have learned something about reaching goals and trying your best and helping each other.

And as a bonus, you get say this to your friends: “Sorry I can’t go shopping with you Saturday morning. That’s a race day, you know.”

On Being a Grandma

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When my now-30-and-28-year-old daughters were in high school, one of their band directors described them perfectly: “Fifty percent of them is exactly the same the same and fifty percent of them is the total opposite.” Which probably is true of all siblings (except me and my brothers, but since they each consistently refuse to acknowledgement my maturity and leadership and wisdom, we will leave that story for another day). I don’t think the two of them look like sisters, either, or look like me at all but when I’m with Older Daughter, people say “Oh, you two look so much alike!” and when I’m with Younger Daughter, people say “Oh, you two look so much alike!” so there must be some resemblance somewhere. All of this to say that I am fascinated with how different our three grandsons are. Older Daughter and Best-Son-in-Law-in-the-World have three boys (Older Daughter is acutely aware that she’s outnumbered, gender-wise) and they are so different yet so alike. While the three-month-old hasn’t staked out his individual territory yet, I already can tell that he’s going to be smart and funny and sweet and imaginative and creative and kind, just like his older brothers. A grandma knows these things. And here I was going to describe to you just what makes the older two so special, but my professional journalistic objectivity is getting in the way of grandmotherly adoration. And vice versa. I could tell you how amazingly talented and awesomely wonderful they are, and it would be true. I could tell you that the first-grader designs and constructs things (he built his own Baymax after we saw “Big Hero 6“) that would impress NASA. I could tell you that the 3-year-old obviously is counting the years (months? weeks?) until he’s no longer under adult rule. I could tell you how the first-grader unpacked and arranged the 3-year-old’s favorite blanket and animals on his bed when they spent the night at our house and how the 3-year-old wants to make sure we save a chocolate doughnut (with sprinkles!) for his older brother. And I’m just getting started. But the thing is that I have lots of friends who have amazingly talented and wonderful and adorable grandchildren of their own. Maybe that’s just how grandchildren are. And as long as we agree that MINE are the most amazingly talented and wonderful and adorable, it’s all good.

Good things — Mississippi football & grandbabies

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coversOh my goodness. I don’t know about you, but things have been CRAAAZY around here lately. For one, my husband right now is the most important person in the state of Mississippi. Well, one of the most important. Well, OK, an important person. (And, of course, to me he always is the most important person everywhere. This commercial message brought to you by the institution of marriage and soulmate-age.) Why is this, you ask? What has 10624932_10203004590851939_4174530144616862315_nhe done to bring such fame and fortune? Of course, those who know John L. Pitts are not surprised to discover the extent of his influence, but lately he holds in his hands, literally, the story that is shaking up everything IMG_4031anyone knows about football: namely, that the two teams his newspaper, the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, in Tupelo, covers — Mississippi State and Ole Miss — are in the top 10 in the AP poll. And, as of right now this very minute, they are no. 1 and no. 3 respectively. Pretty amazing. And now there’s Heisman talk? All I know is that for the past few weeks, my sports editor husband has been working pretty much 24/7 to cover this national story for his local readers — not easy. But, as always, he’s excelling. Of course, this could explain his recent encounter with a deer, on cara heavily traveled road less than a mile from our downtown. I really don’t like to think too hard about this. And what’s even stranger is that my Republican-voting, NRA-supporting, Obama-criticizing husband went and bought a new car that’s synonymous with all he makes fun of: a Prius. It’s the mileage, you know. And the anti-deer capabilities.

Grandson no. 3!Well, those are not even the most exciting things to happen to our family lately. Our third precious grandbaby-boy got born last weekend. Older Daughter and son-in-law did an amazing job of completely un-medicated childbirth in a hospital suite dedicated to a natural and drug-free experience. She is a warrior mom, through and through. I did un-medicated by accident with Younger Daughter (Me: “I really think that we need to go to the hospital now.” Husband-at-the-time: “No. You can’t be that close to pushing yet.” Folks at the hospital as soon as we got there: “Get this woman to delivery stat!!!”), and there’s something to be said for it — now that I’m 28 years away and have pretty much forgotten the details. And speaking of totally awesome Younger Daughter, she now shares her birthday with her third nephew, which is the second shared birthday in our family. I think we’re on a roll.

The Coffee with Cathy Guide to Everything — On Being a Good Grandma

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I love being a grandma. And I’m pretty good at it. Look, when you are the mommy and you have kids, Captureyou’re pretty much stressed and busy and even though you know you’re supposed to slow down and enjoy, there are clothes to wash and homework to check and teachers’ presents to come up with and cookie dough and wrapping paper to buy and so on and WHO HAS TIME TO SLOW DOWN??? But when those kids grow up and give you the most wonderful and adorable grandbabies in the world and you no longer have to worry about 101 ways to make chicken casserole, you can relax and indulge in grandbaby love. Which is The. Best. Ever. But I do try to follow the rules Older Daughter sets down. First, because she is an awesome parent and I have no idea where she learned to be so wise. And, second, if I follow the rules, that means more grandbaby love for me. So I try to be as creative and low-key and green as her standards request. That’s why, one recent afternoon, we all were sitting at the kitchen bar and I noticed four random rectangles of paper — tickets or coupons or something. Eager to show how smart environmentally friendly I was and proud of my educational initiative, I quickly drew a shape on each piece for an impromptu game with 2-year-old grandson of Identify This Shape. And as the genius baby he is, he got the triangle. He got the square. He got the “E” (first letter of his name). But when I held up the fourth shape, he wrinkled his cute little adorable grandbaby forehead in concentration and then, puzzled, looked at his mom, his primary interpreter. She then literally fell on the floor laughing. “What? What?? WHAT???” I said, not sure what was happening. And in that patient tone of voice she uses with me with alarming frequency, she explained: “That doesn’t look like any circle he’s ever seen.” So, OK. I’m not a great artist. And nobody can read my handwriting. But, I ask you, isn’t that clearly a circle? Sort of, anyway? Thank you.

From the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal

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The great thing about having two writers in the house is that we freely can borrow from each other whenever one of us is too lazy to actually write for ourselves and we shamelessly appropriate each other’s experiences share. Well, it’s mainly me who does that. But what my husband, Tupelo, Miss., sports editor John Pitts, says here in his weekly column for the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal is true: Our grandson occasionally lost focus on the T-ball field, it’s a delight to watch athletes who love what they do and baseball definitely is boring.

JOHN L. PITTS: Let’s keep some fun in games

No Original CaptionMy older grandson, who’s 5, got his first taste of T-ball this year.

He really likes practice – we’re talking about practice, y’all – because there’s more hitting and running and doing stuff. He’s less enamored of baseball’s quiet stretches, an attitude he may get from his grandmother, my wife. Her immortal observation, “Baseball is so boring!” will probably never be enshrined in Cooperstown.

He’s learned to adapt.

His mother reports that, sometimes when he’s playing in the outfield, he just tosses his glove aside, lays in the grass and stares at the sky.

It looks like he has the right attitude.

With high school and college practices – football and all the other fall sports, too – under way, it’s worth considering that we’re all looking in the wrong place sometimes. Maybe that big cloud that looks like a monkey is the real point, not the issue of where to throw the ball with a man on second.

We’ve gotten so cynical about sports – and let’s face it, we earned it – that we’re not sure what to make of players who seem too happy doing their thing. The pure joy of the Dodgers’ rookie Yasiel Puig presents quite a contrast to many of his mercenary rivals.

Whatever his off-court problems, it’s the outsized style of Ole Miss guard Marshall Henderson that seems to provoke the most reaction.

My grandson, meanwhile, really does have his eye on the ball – so to speak.

High hopes
I hope the youngsters who’re practicing never lose sight of the fact that it’s a game. It’s hard work, yes, but for the larger purpose of playing well.

I hope coaches who’re leading them never lose sight of the fact that these are young people who may not realize it now, but are learning lessons they’ll rely on for a lifetime.

I hope the parents and fans keep some perspective – do they make that any more? – and remember that good sportsmanship isn’t just a good idea for sportsmen.

And I hope we make every deadline, but along the way I hope we’ll have fun getting there.

John L. Pitts (john.pitts@journalinc.com) is sports editor of the Daily Journal.

Hipster-dom Begins at Home

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Hipster-dom Begins at Home

This probably will NOT be his first-day-of-kindergarten outfit, but it’s cute, anyway. (Cut-outs from a Melissa & Doug Jumbo Drawing Pad, although Son-in-Law Jason Behel probably could draw these in, oh, about five minutes.)

Friends (and Family) with Words

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Here are some conversations I recently have heard, been part of, eavesdropped on and otherwise been amused/horrified/fascinated by:

1) I didn’t pay attention to the two sweet elderly white-haired women talking quietly in the local diner’s corner booth until one of them jabbed her fried-chicken leg in her companion’s face and said, loudly and emphatically, “Well, why should she even try when somebody’s always covering her butt?” She then took a bite out of the chicken leg and their conversation continued softly. Wish I could have heard the rest. I’m guessing the “she” in question is the two women’s baby sister who even years ago was everybody’s favorite … and still is.

2) A non-profit I work with hosts receptions for its corporate sponsors. One of my jobs is to liaison between the sponsors, who can invite whoever and how many ever folks they want, and the volunteers who cook and decorate for the party. The volunteer in charge of the food for this specific reception was in our office kitchen and asked me how many guests the sponsor was bringing.

“He told me it wouldn’t even be 100,” I said, proud I’d talked to the sponsor that morning and had a ready answer.

“Well, that doesn’t help us much,” the volunteer said, rolling her eyes at my incompetence. “‘Not 100’ could be 20 or 80.”

She was correct, of course. Anxious to redeem myself, I backtracked quickly. “I’ll check with him again. What’s the deadline for when you need an exact count?”

Busy counting napkins and cocktail plates, she shrugged. “Oh, it doesn’t really matter. We always cook for 50, no matter what.”

3) An Episcopal priest I know relayed the story of her 2-year-old daughter’s new book of Old Testament stories. My friend started out reading every word to her daughter but then, as bedtime got closer, began summarizing paragraphs with “And then God was sad because the people acted ugly.” (Just like putting grapes in your chicken salad and letting any part of your underwear show in public, “acting ugly” is something Southern children are taught not to do. Ever.) The little girl then got impatient with the reading pace and flipped through the rest of the book, turning pages and chanting, “They acted ugly. They acted ugly. They acted ugly.” Thousands of years and millions of words of Old Testament analysis boiled down to three words.

4) On a gorgeous spring day, I was playing Ninja-Turtle-Star-Wars-Pirates with our 5-year-old grandson in the backyard. I was the lookout on top of the slide in case Penguin attacked us (he does not like to mix up his food but gleefully combines his Super Hero fighters). However, lookouts need naps, too, so I sat on the bottom of the slide, leaned back and contemplated the perfectly blue spring sky. Breaking character for moment, he came up behind me. “Kacky. O, Kacky! I’ve got a dead slug I’m going to put in your hair,” he said, chuckling. “That is so cute,” I thought to myself. “How adorable that he’d pretend to do something so icky to tease me. What a sweetie.” That’s when I heard Older Daughter yelling, “STOP RIGHT THERE AND DO NOT PUT THAT DEAD SLUG IN KACKY’S HAIR!” He did warn me.

Caves, pogo sticks and Pancake Strawberry Shortcake

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Birthday partyOnly a 5-year-old boy would have the good taste to request his mom’s Perfect Strawberry Shortcake Pancakes for his birthday dinner — accented with Star Wars decor, of course. Older Daughter obligingly whipped up a batch while Younger Daughter sliced the berries and made sweetened and real whipped cream. Family and friends sat down to the feast, even husband JP, who although he’s successfully sticking to a low-carb eating plan, cheerfully made an exception for Older Grandson’s birthday party. It’s what grandparents do. And only a 5-year-old boy would request the following for his special day: A trip to a nearby state park to explore a cave, a visit to the local children’s science museum, a pogo stick, Legos (always on any list he makes) and a dinosaur model that includes bones, muscles and a pink squishy stomach and other mysterious parts. Of course, all requests were granted.

The Science Kid

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GrandchidlrenThis is why I am in awe of Older Daughter. It’s an experiment she set up for our almost-5-year-old grandson, also known as Capt. Adorable, sort of along the lines of a “Sid the Science Kid” investigation. (Speaking of Sid and his preschool co-horts, am I the only person who thinks Gerald will turn out to be Keith Moon‘s grandson?) Older Daughter and the Captain wondered what would happen to an egg left soaking in water and one left soaking in vinegar. They identified the hypothesis — he thought the water egg would turn into a snowball and the vinegar egg into what he logically called  a lava ball (because if there’s a snowball then surely there’s a lava ball, right?). Mommy helped with the handwriting but the scientific drawings are all the Captain’s. I predict a bidding war between John Hopkins and Stanford in about 20 years.