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Kids Still Say the Darndest Things

Posted on August 28, 2013 by susanrray

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Remember Art Linkletter’s television program Houseparty and its segment, Kids Say the Darndest Things?  Or how about Bill Cobsy’s weekly TV program in the late ‘90s that was about the funny things kids say?  If anyone ever airs another show that lets children say what I think, I know a few youngsters who’d be perfect guests.  Some of my Facebook friends share their children’s comments, and I really do laugh aloud.

Joel, a first grader, asked his mother, “Do we have a copier at home?”

Mother:  No.

Joel:  Do you have one at work?

Mother:  Um, why do you want to know?

Joel:  Well, money is made on paper and you can copy what’s on paper.

How about this logical reasoning from another five year old?  “I spent all my money, can I buy some more?”

            Kenan was learning the beginning sounds of words.  He asked,  “Does tea, the drink, start with t, the letter?”
Mother: Yes.
Kenan: Awesome!
Kenan: Does Leah Beth (his new baby sister) start with a g’?
Mother: No.
Kenan: Oh, I thought it did because she’s a girl.
            Jonah, age four, pointed to his forehead and asked, “Mom, when I turn five is it called a fivehead?”  Another day, Mother said that her phone battery was almost dead.  Jonah asked, “Will it go to Heaven?”
            And then there’s Max.  When he was two, Max and his mother were looking at some photos of their friends and Max said, “I like the girls.”
Mother:  Yes, we have some pretty friends who are girls.
Max:  I like the naked ones.
            At age four, Max announced that he had a new pet that was small and black and sometimes ate dinner with him on his plate.

Mother: Oh, is your new pet a fly?

Max:  Yes!  And his name is Friendy and I don’t want you to kill him.

Mother:  Well, how will I know that it’s Friendy and not just some other housefly?

Max:  Because Friendy has nipples!

            When Max was five, he said, “I wish I were a tadpole instead of a boy.  Then I could swim more and not get ticks.”
            Travis, age 5, was engrossed in a television program when his mother told him it was time to turn off the TV.  Travis said, “But it’s a cooking show and it’s not over.  Please.”  Mother shook her head.  Travis said, “But I’m learning how to cook.”  Mother shook her head.  Travis tried one more time.  “But, Mom, you should watch too.  You might learn how to cook.”
            Sometimes long words are confusing.  Lou, age 3, saw a short brown twig on the ground and thought it was alive.  She said, “Look, there’s a catterputter.”  One rainy day, Richard asked to take his underbrella outside, and when he wanted binoculars he asked for beach-lookers.  Aaron asked to visit a friend who lived in a condominium.  “Can we go to Russell’s amphibian?”

Thanks, friends, for allowing me to share your kids’ gems.  The things they say would make great reality TV.  I’d set my recorder to watch Kids Still Say the Darndest Things every week.  Meanwhile, please continue to share -we all need a good laugh.

 

Filed under: Everyday Life, Grandchildren, Kids Say Funny Things | Tagged: , , , | Leave a comment »

Wait ’til Next Year’s Fair

Posted on August 15, 2013 by susanrray

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We were stuck.  Front bumper against the railing.  Cars whizzed past.  I turned the steering wheel.  Our car didn’t move.  A yellow car bumped ours.  My four-year-old Grand held on for dear life.  “Ruth, help me turn the wheel,” I said.  Her blue eyes opened wider as she gripped the metal bar in front of her even tighter.  Three cars bumped ours as they went past.

I looked toward the man in the red vest.  The man leaning against the side of the bumper car track and who’d mumbled, “Put your arms in a strap,” as he lower a round metal bar over mine and Ruth’s heads.  I made eye contact with the red-vested man and threw up my hands in despair.  “PUSH THE PEDAL!” he shouted.  My feet were scrunched under my twisted legs on the left side of the bumper car, far from the pedal on the right side.  The pedal, under the steering wheel and a long leg length in front of Ruth’s short legs.

Husband and I took our three oldest Grands – ages 4, 6, and 8 – to the county fair.  I’d given each Grand some money to spend however they wanted.  We walked through the arts and crafts building and checked out the petting zoo.  “Now, can we go see the rides?”  Asked Lou, age 6.  We checked out every ride.  The older two Grands decided they’d ride two rides and buy cotton candy.  Or one ride, cotton candy, and take money home.  Lou and Ruth rode the fish that went up and down and around in a circle.

“Pop,” said David, “will you ride the bumper cars with me?”  He stood beside the painted board that proved he’s tall enough to drive a car.  “Not with me – in a different car.”  Pop headed toward the ticket booth.

“Pop!”  Lou called, “I want to ride.  Can I ride with you?”

“Me, too!” shouted Ruth.  In the time it took me to blink my eyes, it was decided that Ruth and I would ride together and Husband had the tickets in hand and all five of us were hustled toward bumper cars and we got in three separate cars.  I was concerned that my Grand beside me was safe and could steer the car.  It never occurred to me that anyone had to push a pedal.

“PUSH THE PEDAL!”  shouted the man in the red vest.  I untangled my legs, stretched out my right leg, and stomped the pedal.  “Hold on, Ruth,” I said.  I turned the steering wheel all the way to the left and we swerved off the rail.

Smack!  We hit the boy who’d laughed when he bumped our car.  We made a turn at the end of the track and five cars, including two that my Grands were riding in, were headed toward us.  I swerved to bump David’s car and maneuvered between two others.  Open track ahead.  Those five cars were stuck in a traffic jam behind us.  We made two complete circles on the open track.  The yellow car, driven by a teenage boy, broke loose and headed toward us.  I avoided the bump and hit the back of his car.  And then the ride stopped.  “Everybody out,” said the man in the red vest.

Husband, our Grands, and I walked toward the cotton candy booth.  “That bumper car ride went by really fast,” David said.

“Did you see me and Pop hit that red car?” said Lou.

“I like that ride,” said Ruth.  Me, too.  Just wait ‘til next year.  We’ll be ready.

 

Filed under: County Fair, Grandchildren | Tagged: , , | 1 Comment »

Observant and Inquisitive

Posted on August 7, 2013 by susanrray

canstock2636420 Husband found a quiet lake cove and anchored the pontoon boat.  The Grands, wearing their snug life jackets, jumped off the front of the boat, swam to the back, climbed up the ladder, and splashed into the water again and again.  What a happy way to celebrate my birthday – with family, on the water, under a cloudless sky, surrounded by trees.  I floated and watched.  Quite comfortable in my one piece, cover-all-it-can, bathing suit.

The Grands’ parents finally declared rest and snack time.  All of us sat on the boat wrapped in towels.  Six-year-old Lou snuggled close and rubbed her hand over my shoulder and down my arm.  “Gran,” she said, “how do you get that fat there?”  Lou patted my back, right under my armpit.  Husband, Daughter, Son in Law, and Lou’s three siblings looked at her and me.  I tugged on my bathing suit to hide that fat there.  “I don’t know.  How’s that?”  I asked.

“Better, it’s not so fat now,” my sweet Grand said.

My Grands notice everything.  When David was six years old, he and his two younger sisters crowded close as I read aloud.  With one Grand in my lap, and one on each side, I held the book high, front and center, so we could all see the pictures.  David, sitting beside me, rubbed his hand lightly down my arm.  With one finger, then two, and then his whole hand.  And then he patted under my arm right above my elbow.  “Gran, stop a minute,” he said.  “How do you get your arm to do that?”  He thumped that part of my arm that some people call a bat wing.  And he thumped his own underarm.  “Look.  When I do my arm like that it doesn’t jiggle.”  I immediately lowered my arms and the book.

“What?  I want to see,” said both his sisters.  I couldn’t convince them that the book was more interesting than a bat wing arm.  So we played show and laugh, and I silently swore that I’d never again lift my arms from my sides in public, unless I was wearing a sleeve below my elbow.

And then there’s a question that all my Grands have asked at age four.  Recently, Ruth and I sat on the playroom floor and dressed Strawberry Shortcake dolls.  We pretended that they smelled as they did when they were new, more than thirty years ago.  That’s when Ruth popped the question.  The same one that her older brother and sister had asked.  “Gran, is there a baby in your tummy?”  My reply was simple.  “No.”  And I’ve learned to not give explanation.

You know, if I’d lose a few pounds or grow about half an inch taller, I’d be an ideal weight according to most medical charts.  But somehow, my body bulges in places that it didn’t at this same weight twenty years ago.

I’m glad my Grands are observant and inquisitive.  Just not about my body.

 

 

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Peppermints and Cupcakes

Posted on July 18, 2013 by susanrray

Picture 2             “Can we play the peppermint game after lunch?”  my Grand, age 6, asks.

“Sure,” I say.  “Do you remember who taught you that game?”

“Aunt Doris,” eight-year-old David, answers quickly.  “Remember the time I found a peppermint under the couch and she didn’t even know it was there?  It was kind of hard, but I ate it anyway.”

“I wanna’ play too,” says Ruth, age.

“Play, too!”  shouts my two-year-old Grand.  It’s Thursday.  The day these four Grands are Husband’s and my lunch guests.

Aunt Doris, the Grands’ great-great aunt, always had York Peppermint Patties to share with children.  But she didn’t just give them to the children – they played Aunt Doris’s game, Hot and Cold.  A game most everyone has played.  The children hid their eyes or went into the kitchen while Aunt Doris hid peppermint candies in her living room.  “Okay, you can start hunting now,” she’d say.  And then one at a time, each child looked for a peppermint while Aunt Doris gave clues as to how close the hunter was to the hidden treat.  Cold – far away from the candy.  Warm – getting closer.  Hot – very close.

I don’t know who had more fun.  Aunt Doris, my Grands, or maybe Uncle Hugh and I as we watched.   “Hide it again,” my older Grands would say, “and this time made it really hard.”  The same candy might be hidden two or three times, and Aunt Doris refused to give any clues except cold, warm, and hot.  A simple game and a simple candy treat, that connected two generations, separated by more than 80 years.  And now I hide the peppermints.

It occurred to me that so much of what grandparents do, we do to make memories and connect our grandchildren with those we love.  One afternoon when our oldest Grand was about four, Husband came home from work with a box of fancy cupcakes.  “Aren’t the kids (meaning our daughter, son-in-law, and two Grands at the time) coming for supper?  I bought dessert.”  I wanted to know what the special occasion was, but I didn’t get an answer.

As the table was being cleared of dirty plates and meat and potatoes, Husband left the kitchen and came back carrying a picture of my dad.  “Today’s a special day.  It’s your great-grandfather’s birthday,” he told our Grands.  “He made this kitchen table.  This one where we just ate supper, and he was your Gran’s daddy.”  And with that, a tradition began.  On the birthdays of my deceased parents and Husband’s father, we eat cupcakes, look at pictures, and talk about Papa, Grannie, and Grandfather.  Our Grands will never know and love these three great-grandparents as they do Grandmother, who visits and brings macaroni and cheese and chocolate pudding, but maybe they’ll remember that Papa was a schoolteacher and a postmaster, and that Grannie sewed beautiful clothes and owned a flower shop, and that Grandfather owned a grocery store.

  It’s all about the memories and connections.  And peppermints and cupcakes.images

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Filed under: Food, Grandchildren, Lunch | Tagged: , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Life Goes Around

Posted on July 4, 2013 by susanrray

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            Many years ago, Husband and I lived the life that Son and my favorite Daughter-in-law are living now.  I’d forgotten some things about life with a two-year old toddler and a newborn, but it all came back to me during a weeklong visit with Son and his family.

When a toddler goes to bed at 7:00 p.m., he gets up at 5:30 a.m.  When he goes to bed at 8:00, he gets up at 5:30.

Newborn diapers are the size of a standard letter envelope.

Bananas taste better when you hold the whole banana.  Why did I ever think my toddler Grand would like a banana cut into slices?

Newborns relax and sleep when they are swaddled tightly in a blanket, and swaddling takes practice.  My three-week old Grand squirmed enough to free his arms when I wrapped him, but he stayed tightly cocooned when his mother swaddled him.

Newborns spit up within thirty minutes after being dressed in a clean outfit.

It’s fun to see the big green garage truck stop in front of your house.  A city worker dumps the contents of your fifty-gallon trashcan into the back of the truck and then the trash is all gone.

Don’t say ‘outside’ unless you plan to go outside.  And don’t say ‘take a walk,’ unless you are ready to go outside right that minute and take your toddler with you.

A walk around the block is an adventure.  Yellow flowers, smooth rocks, and Linden tree leaves are treasures.

Choose a book that you truly like to read aloud.  After I read the last page of Dr. Seuss’s There’s a Wocket in My Pocket, my toddler Grand immediately said, “Agen!”  By the fourth reading, I wished I’d chosen a different book.

When you take a newborn to the grocery store, other shoppers who are close by walk slowly and speak softly.

A towel draped over a kitchen table chair is a perfect hiding place, and a toddler is quiet when he hides.

Peek-a-boo is a laugh out loud game.  I covered my face with my hands and said, “Where’s Dan?”  My toddler Grand dumped the wooden blocks out of a plastic tub and covered his head.  He lifted the tub and giggled when I simply said, “Peek-a-boo!”

Newborns cry when they are hungry or have a dirty diaper or need to burp.  And sometimes a newborn cries and only he knows why.

A toddler can be one second away from a melt down, especially when he is tired or hungry.

It’s makes you happy when you serve a second helping of your home-cooked spaghetti to a toddler, and he pumps his fists and says “Oh, yeah!”

A wooden train set can entertain a toddler for at least twenty minutes, several times a day.  Eight train cars can be lined up in many different ways.

When a newborn sleeps in your arms, you should sit perfectly still and savor every moment.

It’s okay to go to bed before dark.  The toddler in his room.  The grandmother in hers.

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To My Youngest Grand

Posted on June 30, 2013 by susanrray

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Dear Neil,

I blew a kiss.  Did you catch it?  Your mother’s holding you tightly.  You’re wearing the little blue outfit that you wore home from the hospital.  You’re only two weeks old – a newborn.  And Pop’s and my sixth grandchild.  You are perfect!

Pop and I see you on our computer.  Your clinched fists, your squinted eyes, your wrists and ankles with tiny creases, your black, short, straight hair.  Do you look like your big brother?  A bit.  Same cute nose and round face.

Real soon I get to hold you.  Hug you.  Kiss you.  Rock you.  Read to you.  And even change a diaper or two.  Seeing you through the magic of video talk is better than hearing your parents describe you over the telephone, but I need to hold you in my arms.  Watch you stretch your fists high over your head as you awaken.  Smack your lips when you are hungry.  Cross your legs under your bottom when you sleep.  I even want to hear you cry.  Your way of saying, “Help me!” and I must figure out what you need.

I wonder if the experts are right.  They say that newborns can focus best at 8 -12 inches and that people’s faces are your favorite things to see.  Colors are difficult for you to distinguish; simple black and white pictures are best. So I’ll get close when I talk to you, and I’ll draw black and white stick-person pictures to hang in your room.

You hear well.  And you most like to hear people talk to you.  Especially when the sounds you make are repeated.  That’s why we grandparents babble so.  We’re speaking your language.  And you like everyday sounds.  When your two-year-old brother squeals and sings as he plays with balls and cars, you must be happy.  According to experts, you like to be touched – you know that you’re loved and cared for when you’re held and hugged and kissed.  I didn’t need an expert to tell me that!

Someone actually did a sweet and sour taste test to see which flavor newborns prefer.  Of course, you’d choose sugar water over lemon-flavored water.  When you’re a little older, I’ll feed you ice cream instead of sour apple popsicles.  Your sense of smell is developed enough that you turn away from unpleasant odors.  I’m sure you like the smell of your mother’s chocolate chip cookies baking in the oven.

Neil, you’ll be a newborn for such a short time.  One day you’ll lie on the floor, kick your legs, and turn over.  And later you’ll get up on your hands and knees, rock back and forth, move a few inches, and crawl.  And by this time next year, you’ll be walking!

But for now, you are content to have your belly full, be warm, and sleep.  I can hardly wait to swaddle you in a blanket and cradle you in my arms.  As a friend said, “There’s nothing as sweet as holding a newborn.  They wad up in your arms.  Just a little bundle of love.”

Love you forever,

Gran

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The Whole Story

Posted on June 20, 2013 by susanrray

“Gran, remember when I jumped across the creek?  You were scared!” my eight-year-old Grand said as we stood on the bank of the creek in my back yard.

“Yes, I remember.  But I wasn’t exactly scared,” I said.

“You thought I’d fall!”  David said.  His next question cut me to the quick.  “Did you ever write about it?  That’s when I was 5.”

One cool, early spring morning David and I had played and worked outside.  Kicked a ball.  Blew bubbles.  Picked up sticks.  Threw rocks and leaves into the creek.  The creek was about three feet wide and the foot-deep water flowed swiftly over rocks, carrying leaves out of sight.  We stood on the 4’ bank and wondered why one side of the bank was high and the other just a few inches above water level.

Suddenly, my Grand bent his legs and sprang across the creek.  Jumped high to low and landed on stable ground.  His grinned and looked at me as if to gauge my reaction.  “I didn’t expect you to jump!”  I said.  “Can you jump back?”  He leaned forward and stretched his arms toward me.  The bank where I stood morphed into a mountain.  The creek became a river.

David pushed the legs of his jeans up to his knees, took off his shoes and socks, and stepped into the water.  “That’s cold!”  He jerked his foot out.  “What if my clothes get wet?”  Fine with me, but I didn’t have dry clothes for him.  My Grand put on his socks and shoes and walked along the creek edge, presumably searching for a narrow place where he could jump.  He swirled the water with a stick.  And then he saw a log across the water.  A 12” wide uprooted tree that connected banks about eight feet apart and four feet over the rocky-bottomed creek.  “I’ll walk across!”  he announced.

I expected to deal with wet clothes, but I didn’t want to call my Grand’s mother to report a broken arm.  “How about you sit on the log – like riding a horse – and scoot?”  I said in my sternest grandmother voice.  David wiggled across the fallen tree and leaned sideways faking a fall, just to make me catch my breath.  He laughed.  I hugged him and he immediately turned away from me and crawled back across the log.  “I’m going to walk next time.  Take my picture!”  I smiled, hoping to hide my concern.  I snapped his picture as he stood in the middle of the log. It would be proof that the log really was wide enough to walk when I showed it to his mother in the emergency room.

“Come on, Gran!  Walk with me!”  David said.  He pranced across the log a few more times while I stay planted to the ground, and when I said that it was time to get off the log, he didn’t argue.  Later that morning as we he’d kicked a soccer ball around the yard, he’d asked, “Are you going to tell Momma what I did?”

So now, David, your momma knows the whole story.  Not just that you scooted across a log over the creek.

 

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Sweet Strawberry

Posted on May 15, 2013 by susanrray

imagesOur mission is to pick strawberries.  Daughter wants two or three gallons.  A couple of gallons for me.  We have lots of help.  Her children, my Grands, are experienced berry pickers.  We travel across the county line into White County to our favorite strawberry patch, and we’ll know we’re there when we see the little red barn – actually a shed.

A big shaggy dog lies in front of the closed shed door, and a hand-written, cardboard sign announces, “CLOSED.”  White buckets are stacked on a table.  “Let me check this out.  Maybe we can pick anyway,” Daughter says as she steps out of the van.  Penciled directions on notebook paper reads ‘Help yourself to picking.  A bucket holds a gallon.  $9 a gallon.  Leave your money in the cookie jar.’

My two-year-old Grand sits, like an overseer, in her stroller amid the rows of strawberry plants while Daughter picks berries close to her.  Every plant boasts berries—a few are red.  Many more are small and green.  “Come this way, Gran,” 8 year-old David tells me.  “There’s a lot here!”  He swings a bucket, holding a few red berries, as he tromps past.  Fifteen minutes later, his bucket is almost full.

Lou, age six, frolics in the wide space between two rows of plants.  “There’s strawberries everywhere!” she says.  She checks out each of them, some she picks and puts in her bucket.  “Look at these beautiful flowers.  Are they weeds?”  She breaks a stem with miniature daisy-like blossoms.  Four-year old Ruth stays close to her mother and chooses the reddest berries to fill her bucket.  When her little sister squirms, Ruth rushes to her.  “Here, Elaine, do you want a strawberry?”  Ruth blows on the berry before giving it to her sister.  Elaine’s first bite sends red juice down both her arms.  Using a stick, Ruth draws lines and circles in the damp dirt beside her little sister’s stroller.

With one bucket full of berries and another half full, I call for David, who’s starring at a large strawberry he’s clutching, to help me.  “Not right now.  I’m waiting for him to take a bite,” he says.  A bite?  Who?  “There’s a tiny little ant on this berry.  Do ants eat strawberries?”  Ruth left her post beside her little sister.  “Look, Gran,” she calls to me.  “I found three.”  Assuming that she’s holding three strawberries, I hold my bucket toward her.  “Three ladybugs!” she announces and cradles them in her cupped hands.  A bucket of berries is spilled and picked up.  A few soft, mushy ones are thrown.  Shoes stick in the mud.

Daughter gathers all the troops and suggests if everyone finds just ten more bright red berries, we’ll be finished.  So in less than an hour, after putting money in the cookie jar, we leave the strawberry patch with five gallons of berries.

Mission accomplished.  And so much more.  Experiences and lessons.  About trust and honesty and sharing and working together.  Some weeds have pretty flowers.  Ants eat almost everything.  Ladybugs hide under leaves.  All that makes the strawberries on my Cheerios taste even sweeter.

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From Sweatshirts to Tee Shirts

Posted on May 2, 2013 by susanrray

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Good-bye, fleece pants and sweatshirts.  Hello, shorts and tee shirts.  It’s that time.  Time to fill dresser drawers with summer clothes.  So I asked Daughter in a text, “Can I help with changing out clothes?”  She immediately replied, “Sure!”

Stacks of pass-‘em-down summer clothes, sorted by sizes, were piled on the girls’ bedroom floor.  My three granddaughters, ages 6, 4, and almost 2, jumped over the stacks.  “Let me have Elaine,” I said.  I claimed a corner and sat on a bed where I hoped to keep my constant-moving young Grand corralled.

“These are the size 2’s, but some are big and some are little.  Just slip them on her and you can tell,” Daughter told me.  Elaine held her arms high over her head and lifted her chin as I took off her long sleeve shirt.  She willingly pushed her hand through a white, short-sleeve tee shirt with a pink flower on the front.  “Perfect!”  I said and stripped it off, over her head.

While I put that shirt in the ‘keep pile’ and reached for another, my Grand toddled away and grabbed a pencil in one hand and a Lego piece in the other.  She’s always liked to hold things, and I knew she’d be happier clutching something, but there was no way that I was willing to navigate a pencil through shirt sleeves.  Using my greatest negotiating ability, I convinced Elaine to swap her long pencil for a pencil eraser.  I maneuvered her closed fists through the next shirt and the next and the next.  One was too short.  One too tight.   One was just right.  It was time for me to eyeball ‘just right.’  I stood Elaine on the floor between my knees and laid shirts across her shoulders and guessed ‘just right.’  “Try some of these size 3’s and here’s some shorts,” Daughter said.

“Okay, Elaine, let’s try on shorts,” I said.  I put my hands under her arms to lift her onto my lap.  She slithered to the floor.  How does a kid know how to do that?  She stretched her arms, flat against her ears, straight above her head and slid.  She lay limp.  In a ball.

I sang a silly made-up song, “Let’s try on some shorts.  Let’s try on some shorts.  Elaine, Elaine.  Try on shorts.”  My Grand responded with a smile.  She only had to try on two pairs for me to determine which of the others would stay up and were the right length.  I continued to sing silly songs, and I bounced her on my knees.

“Here’s a couple of dresses to try,” Daughter said.  By now, Elaine wanted to escape.  She ran from our try-on corner to a baby doll bed.  I coaxed her back and quickly pulled a dress down over her head as she squirmed and wiggled.  It fit.  I lifted the dress off and Elaine again slithered to the floor.  Dressed only in her diaper, my Grand lay on her tummy.  Thumb in mouth.

I knew just how she felt.

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Technology Smart Kids

Posted on April 11, 2013 by susanrray

      images      “Good Morning!” I said to my youngest Grand.  His mother passed her sleepy 20-month-old son from her arms to mine.

“Ish!  Ish!”  he said to me.

“Fish?”  I asked.  He nodded his head and looked around the room.  When he spotted my iPad, he repeated, “Ish!  Ish!”

While riding in the backseat of a car with my Grand for over an hour the previous day, I had opened my iPad to entertain him.  He quickly learned to place his finger on a floating circle on the iPad tablet screen and drag it to the fish’s mouth.  He laughed when the fish’s mouth opened wide to swallow the circle.  And that night, I showed him a concentration game, thinking he’d like the way the blank tiles flipped to show pairs of birds and toys and zoo animals that I’d match and then the tiles would disappear.  When only a few blank tiles remained, he pointed to the two that matched.  At first I thought it was by chance, but it wasn’t.  He purposely chose matching pictures several times, but his favorite iPad game was “ish.”

Every time my older Grands come to my house, they ask, “May I play your iPad?”  I set a timer for them to each have a 15-minute turn.  My book-loving Grand always chooses to ‘watch’ a read-aloud book.  The Photo Booth app gives my creative Grand a way produce swirl and mirror and kaleidoscope pictures.  My oldest Grand chooses video-type games.  After they play their just-for-fun games, I encourage them to play learning games.  Now, I know everybody’s child is an advanced technology student.  And that’s what intrigues me.  Youngsters know how to play games on tablets and computers like I knew how to stack blocks.

And today’s kids never tire of their games like my children never tired of PacMan, that yellow, circular, open-mouth character, but the PacMan jingle drove me crazy in the 1980’s.  That’s when my dad told me, “Now, Susan, when I was a kid, I was told to get my head out of a book.  And I told you not to listen to the radio and watch TV so much.  Now you think your kids are playing those video games too much.  Next generation, it’ll be something else.”

One little tyke learned to spell his last name because he wanted to use the new family tablet.  He repeatedly asked his mother the password for the iPad.  Finally, she said, “If you want to use it, you have to learn to spell the password.  It’s our last name, Resudek.”  The next day he announced to his preschool teacher that he’d learned to spell his last name.  His teacher listened as the proud little boy stood straight and tall and recited, “R E S U D E K -Enter!”

Enter…that’s what all our young ones are doing.  Entering life with passwords, computers, tablets, readers, smart phones, MP3 players – all sorts of technology.  That’s where we are.

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