Something New Every Day

My youngest grandchild Marshall will celebrate his first birthday the day after tomorrow. This post about him was written a few months ago. In some ways, he is now an entirely different child—he is much more interactive with the world, more clearly makes his wants and desires known, and walks much more quickly than you realize until you are caught wondering just where he has disappeared. One thing, however, has not changed. I have read this post to all my family members who all agree—Marshall still loves kisses.

My grandmother, who grew a bit more forgetful with each year of her octogenarian decade, had a habit of saying, “Well, you learn something new every day.” And she usually did. We, her teen-aged grandchildren, would roll our eyes because we knew her something new was not really new but something she had learned the day, week, month, or even several years before. She just did not remember she had. Even though we, in our adolescent hurry, were impatient with her forgetfulness, Grandmother never seemed to lose her enthusiasm for learning, or rather relearning, something new every day.

As a granny nanny caring for young grandchildren, I find myself more like my grandmother, learning something new every day. And more often than not, my something new is not really new. It is simply something long dormant in my once encyclopedic, young mother know-how re-bubbling into my granny nanny consciousness.

I constantly find myself surprised as I relearn the habits and natures of babies and young children. I had long since forgotten that the degree of squirminess during a diaper change is equal to, if not greater than, the degree of stinkiness and messiness of a diaper. Or that the reach of a baby never exceeds his grasp when I am holding him on my lap trying to eat a bowl of cereal. Or most importantly, that a mother is always a mother, even if she is now a grandmother, who always knows the cries of one of her own.

Recently when I was dressing nine-month-old Marshall I was reminded of another something new—an infant is always observing and learning, even when we are not aware. Dressing Marshall, or any infant for that matter, is no easy task. Pushing his rubbery, resistant arm through a constricting t-shirt sleeve is far more challenging than pulling and shoving into a Spanx that is two sizes too small. So in order to lessen his resistance and frustration, I play the same peek-a-boo dressing game I used to play with his sister, as well as their mother, when they were babies. Whenever I begin to push his arm through a sleeve or pull a t-shirt over his head, I excitedly repeat the question, “Where’s Marshall’s hand?” or “Where’s Marshall’s head?” Anticipation builds as I increase the speed, intensity and pitch each time I repeat the question. And when his hand or head is finally visible, I exclaim with great fanfare, “There it is! There’s Marshall’s hand!” or "There's Marshall's head!" and shower his hand or head with kisses.

This particular morning I was a bit preoccupied when I dressed Marshall. I had quickly pushed his arm through his sleeve without the usual fuss. When he did not receive the usual praises when his hand emerged from his sleeve, he prompted me with a jazz-hand wave, his splayed fingers dancing expectantly for a kiss. He knew the rules, he had played the game well, and he expected his reward. I quickly obliged. Of course, I should not have been surprised by his response. I knew playing peek-a-boo was a cognitive milestone for an infant his age and we had been playing this game at least two mornings a week for months. (And sometimes wardrobe malfunctions necessitated that we play the game several times a day.) Yet I had never expected him to be more than a passive participant in our daily routine. I had forgotten that all his little infant neurons and synapses are constantly firing creating his ability to remember, to learn, and to act.

I learned that lesson all over again a few days later. In a quiet moment as we sat face-to-face, smiling at each other, his face suddenly dove towards me, his mouth widely gaping open, like a fish about to gulp his prey. He caught my chin between his jaws. When I broke the suction of his lips and gently pulled him back, he dove in again, this time catching my cheek. As he pressed his open mouth against my cheeks, he breathed heavily in and out. I pulled him away again. But he kept diving over and over again until he caught me on my open mouth. As we locked lips, he once more breathed in and out deeply as if performing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. As I struggled to disengage from him, I realized that Marshall was trying to kiss me.

Marshall is a baby who loves kisses. He squirms in delight whenever I rapid-fire kiss his chubby little cheeks and the folds of his neck. Like Baby in a favorite family picture book, Fran Manushkin’s Baby, Come Out!, Marshall loves kisses most of all. And because he loves kisses so much, he is determined to reciprocate. His efforts are still crude, but his intent is deliberate. He has consciously decided to kiss me, to imitate a skill I have unconsciously taught him, and in the process taught me.

And so I am my grandmother. Or at least my grandmother’s granddaughter. Learning something new every day from Marshall, Jim, and Adella. I want to believe I am far too young a grandmother to be stuck in an endless Groundhog Day loop, learning the same things over and over again, day after day. Yet I fear that is not likely given my postmenopausal muddled mind. Instead I will go for the gusto—embracing the same enthusiasm my grandmother had for learning something new every day.