Grandfathered

by Ian Haysom

  The writer P.J. O’Rourke put it best, in his book The Bachelor Home Companion: A Practical Guide to Keeping House Like a Pig:

  For toddlers, I suggest leaving their mittens on year-round, indoors and out. That way they can’t get into aspirin bottles, liquor cabinets or boxes of kitchen matches. Also, it keeps their little hands clean for lunchtimes.

  I only have one thing to add. When we had four young children in our house, and we were very much a lumpy, bumpy family, my wife found a magnet that she put on the fridge. It was from the poem “Song for a Fifth Child,” by Ruth Hulburt Hamilton:

  So quiet down, cobwebs. Dust, go to sleep.I’m rocking my baby. Babies don’t keep.

  Sleep Training

  Speaking of babies and bedtimes, what has been fascinating to me, as grandad three times over, is the very different parenting styles practised by our daughters. While Mayana, who lives on Salt Spring Island, is being brought up as a mini-hippy, Emma and Linden’s upbringing has been much more conventional, in a nice three-bedroom house near Victoria.

  When Emma arrived, for instance, her mum and dad employed sleep training. This meant she went to bed at exactly the same time each night, was put into a sleep sack, and a sound machine was turned on. This played meditative ocean sounds, and every time I sat in her bedroom with her, I too fell fast asleep.

  The basic tenets of sleep training are that you introduce a sleep routine to the baby—from about six weeks old—so that they get into the habit of sleeping all night. The baby may get a bath, then a story, a lullaby, then they’re popped into bed at a consistent bedtime. You then let your baby cry—for a time—go in and comfort them without picking them up and leave the room until they fall asleep.

  Mayana, by contrast, went to bed at all kinds of hours—on weekends at least. It was, and is, still much more laissez-faire. Very modern and Mediterranean. I’m always impressed and a little appalled by those families in Italy or Spain who seem to start dining outside at around 8:00 p.m. with their entire family in tow. Mayana seems to go to bed when she feels like it, except on school nights when she is given a gentle suggestion that it might be a good time to go to bed. By this time, Emma and Linden would be well into dreamtime.

  But both strategies seem to work well. They’re all doing well at school, seem fit and happy and wide awake all the time, so who am I to quibble?

  There’s only one rule in our house. When they come to stay with us, they have to go to bed before I do. I do have some self-respect.

  I have watched Emma grow from a tiny duckling into a swan of a young girl. Feisty, cheeky, artistic, and very funny.

  And I have watched Linden grow from a happy baby into an adorable blond-haired young boy who loves cars and trucks and all the other stuff boys like. He’s already melting hearts.

  Emma and Linden’s dad, Chris, is a super dad. He coaches them at soccer, builds and buys toys, and gives them endless adventures. Chris’s parents, Barry and Jill, live in Lac La Hache in the BC Interior and adore their grandchildren as much as we do.

  All my grandkids are out of central casting. Because they’re my grandkids. Yours are too, I’d vouch.

  11. The Pier and the Charity Shop

  There was a weekend this past January where we had all three grandkids. We had some good adventures, went five-pin bowling, ate pizza and popcorn in front of the movie Peter Rabbit, and played Sorry with Linden until, about halfway through, he got bored and went walkabout looking for his sister and cousin. My wife and I looked at one another.

  “I guess it’s game over,” I said.

  “Guess so.” We quietly packed away the box.

  Earlier that day, we had gone on a walk with our youngest son, Paul, Mayana, and Tucker the dog, and it had been wonderful. There were massive winds, and waves were crashing into the seawall and spray was flying over our heads. We got happily soaked and warmed up with coffees and hot chocolate.

  But the real fun was on the Sunday. It was cold and rainy, and we had just dropped off Paul at the ferry. Now, with all three grandkids in tow and no dog, I said, “Let’s go to the pier. It’ll be cool.”

  What it was was freezing. The pier is really just a wooden fishing pier that juts into the sea. It’s a hive of activity in summer. Not so much on a cold Sunday in January. But a few hardy souls had ventured outside and the wind had stopped blowing so hard. Rain still pierced our faces.

  The three grandchildren skipped along the pier and, the fun part, started inventing games—skipping and running and squealing with delight. That’s a thing we don’t do as adults anymore. We just tramp along for the most part. Little kids run and jump and embrace the world. Then again, I’m not sure that if I ran jumping and squealing through the middle of downtown Vancouver at lunchtime that I’d be openly cheered by onlookers impressed by my youthful exuberance.

  We got to the end of the pier, and a crab fisherman was pulling in his trap. He showed us his haul that morning, including one giant Dungeness crab and three smaller ones, all legal enough to eat.

  We then watched a sailing race. About ten dinghies were zigzagging around buoys. “That one’s stuck,” said Emma. “Look, it’s going backwards now.”

  Then I invented some races . . . ones where you had to walk on every board on the pier as you raced, looking like penguins, to the next bench. Then we had to run backwards. Then we had to hop on one foot. Then we found a wall and did obstacle races. Then seagulls swooped down to fight over some bait that had gone into the water, and three of the birds got into a major tug-of-war over a piece of squid.

  “This is fun,” said Mayana.

  And it was. I am a pier fanatic. I grew up near the seaside in England, near a town called Southend, which boasted the longest pier in the world. The pier, more than a mile long, has over its history had musical halls, restaurants (Jamie Oliver opened one there), a bowling alley, amusement arcades and countless other attractions. And a train that still chugs from the esplanade to the “pier head.” Like most piers built in Victorian times, it serves no useful purpose other than an amusing place to walk and take the sea air and people-watch others doing exactly the same thing.

  The pier at Sidney is a modest but important part of the tradition. It kept us amused and the grandkids distracted for almost an hour. And it didn’t cost us a dime.

  The thrift shop down the street cost us a little more, once we got out of there, but it was money well spent. And, right here, I suggest that if you want to keep grandkids amused and you’re at a loose end, head for a charity shop and watch them lose themselves in the toys, clothes, books, and other treasures. It is an adventure for you and for them.

  While I was leafing through scores of books by Pierre Berton and Allan Fotheringham—so that’s where they went—and more paperback thrillers than I could read in a lifetime, my grandkids were getting excited about every new, and inexpensive, discovery they’d just made.

  When we exited, an hour later, we had spent $23.50. Most of that, $15, was spent by me on an ancient “electric slide viewer” that enables me to go through hundreds of slides we took almost forty years ago. None of our projectors work anymore.

  Emma bought earmuffs and a bag of small toys. Mayana bought soccer boots and a new sweatshirt. Linden bought a giant skateboarding action hero with bags of accessories that likely cost a hundred dollars when new, but he (or, rather, I) now acquired for six. Perfect recycling. And the treasures will likely be donated to another charity shop in a few months. Everyone wins.

  It was an inexpensive half-day trip. One of imagination and good memories. And some good junk.

  Too Shy

  So you’re out with your grandchild, maybe in the local mall or in a park, and a friend comes by. You proudly introduce your grandson and granddaughter.

  Nothing. They give you nothing. A blank stare.

  Mayana and Emma were the worst when they were younger. They could be blithely chatt
ing their heads off until mere moments before. But when introduced, they’d suddenly look at their feet and clam up. Or worse, they’d look right into the eyes of the stranger like deer caught in oncoming headlights.

  “Say hello, Emma.”

  Nothing.

  “Emma, just say hello,”

  Silence.

  “You know, she’s not normally like this,” I say.

  “That’s okay,” the friend would say, “she’s just a bit shy.”

  Linden is four years old, and he’s perfected the silent treatment. He looks at the stranger, looks at me, looks at the sky for a second, then just gives everyone a big smile. Which, frankly, is a billion-dollar smile so he can get away with just about anything.

  Of course, when they refuse to speak, I get more frustrated.

  “Come on, Mayana, just say hello. Come on. Say hello. Say hello. Say hello.”

  To be fair, they seem to grow out of it. Mayana now chats amiably and—it makes my heart swell with pride—actually expounds on stuff.

  “We just went to the toilet.” That kind of thing.

  You want them to perform, and they try to embarrass the heck out of you.

  Emma once was painfully shy in front of those who weren’t members of her immediate family and refused to perform on command. She’d dance this amazing ballet for us while I plonked on the piano. Then a friend would arrive, and I’d say, “Go on Emma, do what you just did.”

  And she’d leave the room.

  For a while, as a toddler, Emma didn’t like applause, so taking her to concerts was a challenge. One birthday we had to hum “Happy Birthday to You” because she would burst into tears if we sang too loud.

  And then, suddenly, somebody turned on her chatty switch. Now she talks like an express train and will happily spill out her day, her week, her life story to anybody who asks. Or doesn’t ask.

  She likes to perform, to do little dances or major routines with Linden as her cute assistant, and she’s adorable.

  The other week, I took her into an English candy store in downtown Victoria. I told her to pick anything she wanted, as long as she didn’t tell her parents and ate it before we got home.

  I chatted for a few minutes with the shop owner about English candies, like aniseed balls, I used to eat as a youngster back in England. Eventually, Emma found the candy she wanted. And then told us that these candies had been in a goodie bag she’d received at a friend’s party, and that there was a story behind them, because there was a TV character based on them, and . . .”

  She didn’t pause for breath. The store owner was attentive and supportive, listening in detail to this everlasting story. It was so long that two customers came into the store, looked around, checked out a few packages, and then left. I was afraid we had lost the store some business.

  Emma was still talking. “Well, time to go,” I said, thinking we could bankrupt this store if Emma went on much longer.

  As we walked up the street, hand in hand, Emma looked up at me.

  “You were a chatty Cathy in that shop, Grandad.”

  “Me?” I said. “I could hardly get a word in edgewise. You were the chatty Cathy.”

  “Well, you kept going on and on about old candy you liked. I just had to stand there and wait for you.”

  And then, she added, to punctuate the point, “You’re a chatty Cathy. You’re a chatty Cathy. You’re ...”

  Like grandfather, like granddaughter.

  Linden will emerge from his chrysalis of silence, I’m sure, but boys as we know are slower at these things. They still shuffle and look at their shoes when they’re teenagers. And manage to look bored because you inflicted the outside world on them.

  Linden is talking and singing and dancing to me already. Just for now, the audience can wait.

  Upside Down

  One thing I can’t figure out is why my granddaughters spend so much time upside down. They both go to gymnastics, and I’ve seen them at their classes, and they do bouncing and skipping and somersaults and such. But none of this explains why they’re always standing on their hands and looking at the world upside down.

  Linden doesn’t do it. Well, he tries, but he just falls over.

  Mayana started it. She’d been to acro-dance classes, a cross between acrobatics and dance, and from then on, I found myself talking to her feet as she stood on her hands.

  Emma soon followed. When they weren’t standing on their hands, they were doing impossible backflips and other contortions that were painful just to watch.

  “Why do you keep doing that?” I once asked Mayana.

  “Because it’s fun, Grandad. You should try it.”

  Riding a Bike

  I taught all my four kids to ride a bike, running behind them and holding onto the saddle as they wobbled in front of me. The training wheels had been removed. And there was that moment of triumph when you could let go and they’d realize they could do it on their own, and off they’d fly.

  My three grandkids can all ride a bike. All were helped enormously by those strider bikes, the ones that don’t have pedals, and the kids just propel themselves around striding while riding.

  It’s still a magical moment when they get on a pedal bike and start on the adventure of a lifetime. I’ve loved riding bikes all my life and have ridden in London, Paris, Rome, and New York, as well as along the Danube, in Napa Valley, and across the Scottish Highlands.

  But none compared to the moment when I rode with all three of my grandkids along a bike path near our home last year. My dream is to ride alongside them as long as I can, and as long as they still want to.

  Imagination

  Imagination. I’m not sure how small children possess this amazing facility to venture into fantasylands and alternative realities without the use of hallucinogenic drugs.

  Look at them playing with dolls, with small toy cars, or even a couple of blocks of wood. They go into a dreamland of adventures and dramas, zoom-zooming and having long conversations with nobody in particular.

  Einstein said that imagination is more important than knowledge. Which is a good thing since I daydreamed through most of my chemistry, math, biology, and geography classes at high school. I missed many basic facts, such as algebra, trigonometry, the entire seventeenth-century history of Italy, and oxbow lakes, but I did score a lot of goals for Tottenham Hotspur in my head.

  Imagination is important. It’s the creative muse. And grandchildren seem to have the best imaginations of all. Linden will talk for hours about dinosaurs and purple elephants and how they went down into this cave and phwoom phwoom—his noise for a gun or a laser or some kind of neutralizing weapon that usually comes into play about two minutes into one of his stories. I think he’s going to make action movies when he grows up. His movies will all contain trucks that blow up or crash into someone’s kneecap.

  Granddaughter Emma’s stories are rich in imagery and short on detail, sort of like a lyric by Donovan. There are plenty of clouds, some fairies, woolly mammoths, and sometimes Elsa and Anna from Frozen.

  When she was younger, Mayana used to assume a new identity, particularly for some obscure reason, when we went swimming at the local pool.

  “Okay, Grandad. I’m Shirley and I’m going to swim to you because you’re my swimming teacher.” And then she’d be Shirley for the next hour or so, and I had to be called “Teacher” instead of “Grandad,” and if I mistakenly called out something like “That was great swimming, Mayana,” she’d glare at me and say, “Not Mayana . . . Shirley, Grandad.”

  “Surely you mean Teacher, Shirley.”

  Another glare, and then we were off into fantasyland some more.

  For grandfathers there’s an important lesson here. Our inclination is to limit rather than nurture imagination. Imagination, so I’ve learned, is an important tool for children to test out the world, try new ideas an
d situations. The grandfather, being more practical, will often try to correct his grandchildren and steer them towards logic and reality. Well, who the heck needs that when there’s fun to be had?

  More and more childhood educators are also telling us that we need to limit screen time, because it’s killing imagination. Get the kids outdoors, playing games of imagination and wonder.

  There’s plenty of time to grow up. No need to rush things.

  Thank goodness, however, Mayana didn’t want me to be Shirley.

  Granddogs

  I’m not sure what you call someone who’s a grandparent of dogs. I do know that granddogs are, if not on a par with grandchildren, then one small step—or is that lope?—behind. And granddogs are certainly a thing. We who have granddogs know. They belong to our kids, so by association they belong to us—on weekends, on holidays, and sometimes for even longer periods. Free doggie-sitting.

  Our granddogs are called Tucker and Bauer. And like grandchildren, they are adorable and needy and messy and know they can get away with just about anything when they are with us. Both are poorly trained, just like all grandchildren. And we try to lick them into shape, though they do most of the licking.

  Tucker belongs to Amy, mother of Mayana, and has some English sheepdog, husky, some wolf and probably a few other attributes as well. His ancestors obviously slept around.

  He is light brown with a small tuft of white hair on his chest and has a noble bearing. Other dog owners, when I take him to the doggie park, remark on how handsome he is, which makes me beam with pride. I’m not sure why. But he’s a good dog to be with. I’m just happy he’s not a Chihuahua or mini-poo or whatever they call those yappy little dogs that could fit into a purse.

  Tucker has many qualities. Obedience is not one of them. In his first year of life, he’d run off as soon as he smelled deer or some other more interesting odour than us. Eventually he’d come back. Tail wagging, all covered in mud and other debris, with an almost apologetic look on his face.