Summer with the Grandies

I was just thinking how blessed we are with our six grandkids.  I loved having the three girls over for five weeks, but the things they leave behind…the memories…some not so good…some great. 

Did you know that three is an odd number?  Odd is not the word. Three girls fight. It is always two against one.  It is never the same two against one either. 

They all want their own goggles for the pool.  Each year we go through this because by the time the season is over, the pool items are toast.  I get them nice goggles.  They are tough on everything so eventually, two of them don’t think theirs works any more. So now I have three girls sharing one pair of goggles.  They decided on 15-minute increments.  So I hear, “Nanny, is it 15 minutes yet?” 

We have pool floaters but everyone wants the same one at the same time.  When they get out, they get everything wet, and their towel needs ringing out.  Surprisingly enough, with the evaporation from the sun, the splashing, and the water in the towels that there is still enough water in the pool to make the pumps work properly.  I had to ask if they knocked the towels in the water and I got this really quizzical look on their faces.

So, in the house they go to watch a television program like “I Carly” or something like that, grab some snacks, and then it is back in the pool with dry suits and dry towels. 

My loads of laundry included 16 towels each time I washed clothes and there were only three girls.

Then it is the laptop in my family room.  “Nanny, can I use the computer?”  “Me too, Nanny.”  I ask why they need to use my computer. Of course, I need not have asked because it was Facebook.  Again, they set up 15-minute increments.  It’s back to “Nanny, is it 15 minutes yet?” 

Shopping was a trip.  If they did not take advantage of my having a shoppe with things they love, it was at other shoppes where it put a dent in my wallet.  When I was a kid I was lucky to have a new dress for Easter and Christmas.  These kids today have no concept of money.  They think I live in a mansion (which I don’t), they think I am rich because I have a shoppe (which I am not), and they think money grows on trees (which I only wish were true). 

At the community sale mid-July, I purchased a Casio 100-song keyboard which I thought would be fun for the kids to play with. And yes, it was the same self-imposed 15-minute increment per kid and the same old question again, “Nanny is it 15 minutes yet?”  I realized I should have purchased a timer devoted strictly to the kiddies. 

I taught then how to play a one-fingered Silent Night and at least one of them caught on pretty quick as to timing.  I put stickers on the keys and wrote on a paper the keys to play: G A G E, G A G E – D D B – C C G, etc.  The keyboard was hauled from my shoppe to my house and vice-versa via my SUV. The last trip, before the kids went home, it was left in my car and that is where it stayed. It was moved around in the back of the car when we put the groceries in and somehow, one of us had overturned the box. So on the way home, as Bill and I were in the car, we went over a bump in the road, and lo and behold, we had music coming from the back of the car. Bill said “What the?” and I could not stop laughing because I knew where this was coming from.  I thought the Casio only worked when it was plugged in. Big surprise. The bump in the road helped the keyboard switch to go into the “on” position and we had music competing with our country music radio station.  It was like the kids were back and when I stopped laughing, I started tearing up because it made realize how much I missed the girls. They would have thought this was pretty funny.

But I miss them when they leave.  I hope these summer trips leave lasting impressions in their minds and they tell their kids what a great Nanny and Poppy they had and the fun they had with us.  

On my way to work everyday since they left, I see a Volkswagen and I say out loud, “Slug Bug” like they were in the car with me.