Saturday, May 28, 2011

Bobble Head Dog

Matty and Noah
Maddy and Emilee

Going through some old papers yesterday, I found one on which I had written funny things my oldest granddaughter Madelynne said when I was tending her every day for a couple of years when she was about 2 – 3 years-old.  Back then (even only seven or eight years ago), cell phones didn’t have texting or cameras, so I had to manually write down the things I wanted to remember to share with her mom and dad.  For example, one day she kept saying she wanted to watch “Pokeybononio” and I couldn’t figure out what she was talking about (all I could think of was 'Pokey Little Puppy' but that received as resounding, "No! Pokeybononio!).  She finally told me it was in the diaper bag.  When I checked, I found the movie, “Pinocchio”.  (Of course! Silly Gramma!)   Another day she was running up and down the hallway and laughing hysterically.  When I asked why she was laughing, she said, “I just laughing!” and continued on her way.  Wouldn't that kind of joy be great?
          Last night, at the ripe old age of ten, she was tickling Noah and he was laughing hysterically and she laughed and said to me, “I just love to make him laugh like that.”  Oh how far we’ve come...
          Emilee, my other granddaughter, at age 4, (whose parents are no longer a couple) saw a picture of her mother at my house and said in surprise, “Hey, you know my mom?”
          Matthew, her twin brother, the quiet grandchild, laid me on the floor laughing when we went to a 3-D movie a few weeks ago and he kept earnestly reaching out and trying to touch the figures on the screen.  I guess that’s the purpose of 3-D movies, but it sure was funny to watch.
          These days, I tend Noah, age 3, while his mom goes to school and his dad works.  He is talkative and has a great vocabulary for his age.  He is being raised in the age of interactive educational programming.  Almost every cartoon he watches has characters who ask the viewer questions and then wait for their answers.  After an adventure, Dora the Explorer will ask, “What was your favorite part?”  She stands and listens, then says, “I liked that, too.”  Noah answers Dora and Mickey Mouse and the Umizumi kids and every other character on these shows.  The other day, a trash bag commercial came on that said, “Don’t get mad. Get ‘Glad’!”  Noah responded, “I’m glad!” 
          I am thrilled that these kids have overcome the genes that their grandfather and I contributed, which, no surprise, everyone knows are from the shallow end of the gene pool.  And one of us contributed genes from the really scurvy end.  (I’ll let you figure that one out.  Hehehe!) 
          Now this is where the title of this piece comes in…
          As their grandmother, I feel like a Bobble Head Dog in a car window, shaking my head in amazement as I watch their growth, their interaction with each other and their lives whizzing by me.  (I felt this way with their fathers, too.  Time flies, as they say…but it is moving much faster nowadays.)
          A few days ago, I heard Noah’s quiet, but plaintive cry, “Gramma, can you get me out?”  I looked over and he had wrapped himself in the vacuum cord until he couldn’t move, so I had to go untangle him.  Of course, he wasn’t in any danger (I had been watching him out of the corner of my eye.) so I took a picture first. 
Hog-tied and ready for butcherin'
I guess some of those shallow genes may still be floating around.