Life Unencumbered

“Oh, no,” Adella says as a box of Kix cereal slips from her hands and scatters all over my clean (for once) kitchen floor.

“Don’t worry,” I calmly assure her. “We’ll clean it up.”

And then I hurriedly rush to sweep up the balls of cereal. It is a race against time. Adella’s cry most certainly has alerted Marshall, who is in the family room, that something has happened. I know Marshall will soon be in the kitchen to investigate. I also know how much Marshall would enjoy the crunchy sound of stomping all these little balls of cereal.

I empty my dust pan into the trash and breathe a sigh of relief just as he arrives. Today, at least, I was faster than Marshall. He surveys the kitchen and then sees a lone Kix in the middle of the floor that I had missed in my sweep. But rather than stomping it, he falls to the floor. He lies flat, arms at his sides, his face next to the ball. For just a second, he stares at it, then he inhales it, gets up, and is off to play with Adella.

I laugh. (I did say my kitchen floor was clean.) I admire his ingenuity and efficiency. I would have bent over and picked up that lone, errant Kix ball. But he cut out an unnecessary middleman--his hands--and sent that Kix straight to his mouth. Unconstrained by adult convention and expectation, he dealt with that cereal ball in a way I never could have imagined. The world he sees is far different from mine.

A few days later, Marshall has found the tall, bright yellow, Fisher Price plastic sorting canister his mother played with three decades ago. He shakes it up and down, delighting in the rumble the shapes inside create. I too am delighted, for I sense a teaching moment. Perhaps I can eke out a little more value from an overpriced educational toy I had purchased as a poor student when I could ill afford it.

I empty the canister, dumping out the red, blue, green and yellow cylinders, rectangular prisms, and cubes onto the floor. I replace the blue sorting lid. Then I show Marshall how to sort the shapes into the canister. First, I pick up a blue plastic cube and exaggeratedly try to push it first through the circular and rectangular shaped holes in the lid. Then I smoothly slip it into the square hole. The cube kerplunks into the canister.

I clap. “Hooray,” I say. Marshall giggles and claps as well.

I hand him a yellow cylinder. He tries pushing the round peg into the square hole. It does not fit. It does not fit through the round hole either. Marshall lacks the dexterity to align the cylinder with the circular hole and push it through. So I help him position it directly over the hole, and together we push it into the canister. It kerplunks into the canister.

“Hooray,” I say again. Together we clap. I hug him as he giggles.

I hand him a red cylinder. I watch. I have modeled how to sort for Marshall. We have sorted together. He is in his zone of proximal development. I am curious to see if he can now match the cylinder to the circular hole and push it through himself.

He randomly tries pushing the cylinder through all three holes without success. Then he pauses. He looks carefully at the bucket and its lid. Then he does the obvious. He pulls off the blue top, drops all of the remaining shapes into the bucket, replaces the top, and begins shaking the bucket again, returning to what he had been doing before I had interrupted him with a teaching moment. Once more, he delights in the rumbling of the bucket.

Thus two-year-old Marshall schools me. Twice. And “my heart leaps up.” For he reminds me to behold life as a little child, unfiltered, without the constructs of adulthood. To see the world fresh and anew. In those moments, “the child,” Marshall, “is the father of the man” (me).  

Of course, the most frequent interpretation of this oft quoted line is that the adult Wordsworth hopes to retain the awe and Joy he felt for Nature as a child. The quotation is also often used to convey the sentiment that an adult man (or woman) is the product of the behaviors and habits he (or she) has developed as a child. But when I think of this line I think of my grandchildren and how they teach me to view the world more simply. Marshall and Adella and Jim teach me to cut through the clutter and constraint of my adult life to see a world of Joy and whimsy. And this is why I revel in being a granny nanny.

My education continues every day. This morning Pop Pop left for work as soon as I emerged from my shower. I can hear Marshall babbling in the family room, so I take a few minutes to throw on a bathrobe, brush my teeth and quickly run a comb through my wet hair. By the time I walk into the family room, however, I can no longer hear him. Adella is absorbed in her menagerie of Littlest Pet Shop pets, carefully arranging them on the coffee table for what looks like feeding time.

“Where’s Marshall?’ I ask.

“Don’t know,” she replies, distracted. The animals are restless.

I immediately begin calling for Marshall. I expect to hear a giggle or a babble in response. But there is none. I go upstairs to the bedrooms, downstairs to the play area and laundry room. I look in the living room and the dining room. Still no Marshall.

My threat level moves from yellow to orange. I redouble my efforts. I check favorite hiding spots--the curtains in the dining room, the kitchen cabinets, a favorite nook behind a chair in the family room, my laundry basket, and my bedroom closet. I check the backyard and the basketball bin in the garage. Still no Marshall. Only a deafening silence. I am worried. Two-year-olds cannot not giggle when hiding.

My threat level rises to red as I consider possibilities. Has he crawled in some nook where I cannot hear him? Or is it possible that Marshall slipped out the garage door unnoticed when Pop Pop left for work? Is Marshall roaming my neighborhood?

Then Adella, who has left her pets to join in the search, yells through the kitchen door. “I found him. He’s on your playground.”

I rush outside onto the deck. And sure enough, there he is. Hidden inside the Little Tykes play structure in the backyard, he is merrily playing. He has escaped through the kitchen door someone has left unlocked.

From my perch on the deck, I try to coax Marshall to leave the play structure, climb the stairs and come inside. I am still in my bathrobe and I do not have the luxury of a secluded backyard. Only a split rail fence separates my backyard from those of my three neighbors. I am really hoping they are all at work.

Sensing my frustration, Adella offers a solution.

“I know, Granma,” she says. “Let’s just play outside.”

“Great idea,” I say. “But I’m not dressed yet. I’m still in my bathrobe. I need to put some clothes on before we can play outside.”

I continue practicing the art of gentle persuasion on Marshall. He is not not swayed. He continues playing.

I up the ante. “I have fruit snacks,” I say.

Marshall still does not budge. I am resigned to going down the deck stairs and marching across the yard in all my sartorial glory to grab Marshall. I imagine his kicking and squirming as we return to the house, creating a wardrobe malfunction à la Janet Jackson. Should I offer ice cream?

And then from behind me I hear Adella triumphantly say,  “Here you go, Granma.”

I turn. There she is proudly holding a pair of my jeans in one hand and one of my T-shirts in the other. She has retrieved both from my dirty clothes basket.

“Here’s some clothes for you,” she continues. “Now we can play in the backyard.”

Problem solved. No matter that the clothes are dirty, stinky and wet. No matter that she neglected to bring me any underwear, clean or dirty, along with the clothes. No matter that I do not have the slightest inclination to give my neighbors on three sides, who I am still hoping are not home, a peep show as I dress. (Although when the headliner is as old and wrinkly as I, can it truly be called a peep show?)  No matter. Adella has taken my seemingly complex adult problem, reduced it to its bare essentials, and solved it ignoring the constraints of my adult conventions.

Life simple. Life stripped. Life unencumbered.

And my heart leaps up.

Declaration of Independence

If, as parents, we do our jobs correctly, we teach our children to become independent. We learn not to rush to our infant whimpering in the wee hours of the morning, hoping she will learn to soothe herself back to sleep. We do not corner the Little League coach who relentlessly yells at our son. And we sit back, hoping for that “aha” moment, when our college-bound co-ed realizes she must reconcile her dreams of the perfect dorm room with the reality of her college budget.

Denying our parental instincts to protect our young requires great patience. And if we are honest, we never really want our children to be completely independent of us. For if our adult children truly no longer need us, no longer seek our opinions nor our help, they have probably warehoused us in a long-term care facility, where they visit us once a month. Which is why Pop Pop and I found ourselves babysitting Marshall and Adella for two days. Our daughter Chrissy and her husband Christian needed us to watch their two children for a few days while they celebrated their tenth wedding anniversary.

As grandparents, fostering independence in our grandchildren is even more complicated and requires even more patience, for there are two sets of parents and children in play. And while we grandparents are older and wiser (?) and more experienced, we are also older and more tired and more curmudgeonly. Pop Pop’s and my weekend adventure in babysitting, which began simply enough with a trip to the grocery store, quickly reminded me how difficult it is to muster my reserves of parental patience when a preschooler persists on declaring her independence.

It all started the moment we drove into the Shop Rite parking lot.

“Granma, see those red carts,” Adella says pointing to the bright red child-sized shopping carts with a “Customer in Training” flag at the end of a gray pole. “Them are what us want.”

“Yes, I see them,” I reply. “And you can have one of those carts. But I am going to put Marshall in one of the shopping cart cars.” 

Marshall is just barely two. He is not prone to follow instructions. A green, two-seater with seat belts over the top part of the cart is just the ticket. The child has the illusion of driving the cart, but the adult has complete control.

“No,” Adella wails. “Granma, Marshall needs a red cart like me.”

I do not respond. I park the car. I hope that by delaying, we will at least get across the parking lot without drama. And there is always the off chance she will forget.

Adella, however, senses the urgency of her mission and the need for speed. She quickly unbuckles her booster seat while I fumble with Marshall’s car seat buckles, and soon has Pop Pop by the hand rushing to the little red shopping carts.

“Over here, Granma,” she calls as I am crossing the parking lot with Marshall, who is totally unaware of the brewing drama. He is just happy to be free of the car seat.

“We have the carts for us,” she adds, her hands on two carts. The urgency of her situation, I note, has somehow improved her grammar.

I walk toward the two-seater shopping carts. What did we do before all these child-friendly accoutrements, I wonder. Then I remember. Do-nuts. Today I would certainly be mommy-shamed for my parenting choices.

“No, Granma,” Adella insists. “I have a cart for Marshall.”  

I drop Marshall into the driver’s seat. He starts spinning the wheel.

There is a sliver of an alley between the regular shopping carts and the wall of the building. Adella abandons her red carts and runs down the alley. Then she flops down on a small ledge, where she sits, arms defiantly crossed across her chest, lips pouting.

I cannot squeeze into the space to grab Adella. I must try to talk her out.

“Adella, I need you to come out. We need to buy some food to eat.”

“I’m not coming,” Adella replies.

“Don’t you want to shop with your cart?”

“No,” she replies.

“Vroom, room,” Marshall purrs. The car rattles as Marshall rapidly spins his steering wheel.

Unwisely I have begun this weekend’s adventure in grandparenting without a stocked refrigerator. I want food. I need food. And I have no more than thirty minutes to get it. The clock is ticking on Marshall’s patience. I need Pop Pop’s help.

I am not exactly sure why Pop Pop has accompanied us to the grocery store. On the list of places he would least like to go, the grocery store ranks third, behind the dentist’s office for a root canal, and the doctor’s office for a colonoscopy. He hates the rows and rows of unlimited choices. He hates the uncertainty of a checkout line. (Did I choose the right line? Did I forget anything? How much will it cost? When will we be done?) Perhaps he has joined us as a result of the residual effect of my birthday the day before. Frankly I do not care why. There are two of us. There are two of them. We can divide and conquer.

“You deal with her,” I say to Pop Pop. “I’ve got to get some groceries.”

So Marshall and I disappear into to the store.

“Vroom, vroom, vroom,” Marshall sputters as we steer the cart through the produce section. Quickly I set about selecting Jersey Fresh peaches and plums, tomatoes and peppers. Then I look up and there is Adella. She is pushing two little red mini-carts. Smiling triumphantly. Pop Pop has caved.

“Oh, Marrrr--shullll,” she says with a tantalizing lilt. “Look what I’ve got.”

Suddenly Marshall, who has been blissfully unaware that a mini-shopping cart was an option, is standing up in his car. In my haste to get in the store, I have not strapped him in. He throws his leg over the side. Marshall wants out. Now.

I give Pop Pop the death stare.

“You asked me to deal with her,” he replies. “I did.”

“Then you get to watch them,” I reply to Pop Pop. Obviously Pop Pop has not been in a grocery store for years. A man continually lost in his world of numbers and lines of code, he has nonetheless neglected to calculate the risk of setting Marshall free.

I start shucking corn. I try to pretend I do not know Pop Pop or my grandchildren. Which is worse, I wonder, being identified as that grandparent, the one who allows an unruly grandchild to run rampant or as a dementia patient escaped from a long-term care facility, navigating a grocery store with a kiddie cart with no child in sight. Pretty much six of one, half a dozen of the other, I conclude. But it really does not matter because I do not succeed in my ruse. Marshall views me as some sort of anchor point to which he keeps returning, whipping back and forth past me as he pushes his cart. He is not unlike a kamikaze. Except that a kamikaze has an intended target and strikes only once.

By the time I reach the meat section, Pop Pop has put two and two together and finally realizes the folly of the two-preschoolers, two-cart shopping adventure. So, with ninja-like stealth, Pop Pop swoops up Marshall and  deposits him in my cart. I strap Marshall in before he even realizes what has happened.

I do not say, “I told you so,” although I want to. I do not even bother with a second death stare when I realize it is Pop Pop’s intent to just abandon the little red cart, mid-aisle. Instead I throw some chicken into my cart and sprint toward the dairy section away from the red cart. Just as Marshall believes himself invisible whenever he covers his eyes with his hands, so I believe if I distance myself from that abandoned cart, if I can no longer see it, then no one will identify me as that inconsiderate supervising adult who has allowed it to be left behind.

A quick pace is crucial for Marshall. If I move quickly, he seems placated. Perhaps he thinks we will catch up to Adella and Pop Pop, who are just ahead of us. He is steering his car once again, but he makes no happy motoring sounds. Indeed I sense how fragile his satisfaction is: each time my cart slows, his steering slows and his squirming increases. So I dash through the dairy section, haphazardly throwing items into my cart. Milk. Orange juice. Yogurt. Cheese. Eggs.

And then, in the freezer section, I stop for the slightest of seconds to consider my frozen lasagna choices. As fate would have it, I pause at the exact moment that Adella and Pop Pop turn the corner, disappearing from Marshall’s view. All hell breaks loose. Marshall starts howling and alternately straining forward, reaching after Adella and then contorting backwards towards me, trying to twist his way out of his seatbelt.

I unstrap Marshall, throw him under one arm, quickly swing my cart around the corner, and speed toward Pop Pop, who has just helped Adella pick out a carton of lovely Party Cake ice cream. I shove Marshall at him. We look at each other. It is ten minutes past we-should-have-left-the-grocery-store for Marshall. Fifteen for Pop Pop.

“Let’s just go,” I say.

Pop Pop does not need to think twice. He turns toward the exit.

And then an innocent, sweet little voice, one reminiscent of Cindy-Lou Who confronting the Grinch on Christmas Eve, rings out.

“But Granma,” Adella says, “What about the Play-Doh?”

The Play-Doh. That darn Play-Doh. So clever I had thought myself promising  a cheap, non-sugary reward in exchange for good behavior while shopping. A pox upon my promise, I want to say. But her question is like Kryptonite, decimating my resolve for a quick exit. For I have always prided myself on being a parent who kept her word to her children. I was not about to start with my granddaughter.

“Let’s find that Play-Doh,” I say.

And off we trek to the toy aisle at the exact opposite end of the store in a single file, Granma maneuvering a large, childless kiddie-cart, followed by Pop Pop wrangling a frustrated, whimpering Marshall and Adella bringing up the rear, intently pushing her completely full red cart.

Then, just as I am about to turn down the toy aisle, Adella calls out.

“Oh, Grannn-maaa. . .”

No, I think. She has stopped. We cannot stop. We must not stop. We must keep moving.

I stop. I turn around.

Adella is standing next to an abundant end aisle promotional display deliberately positioned on the lowest, kid-friendly shelf, no doubt. She is holding aloft a package of Jumbo marshmallows.

“We need to hurry Adella if we want to find the Play-Doh,” I urge, my throat tightening as I force my bubbling impatience deep down into my large grandma heart that was shrinking three sizes that moment.

“But, Granma, I need some marshmallows. Can I have some?”  she pleads.

I do not understand her need for marshmallows. With an entire grocery store of decadent offerings, why does she want a simple bag of marshmallows? Marshmallows are sticky, gluey blobs. I do not for one minute believe the results of the Stanford marshmallow experiment. What planet were those researchers on? Simple marshmallows do not tempt young children. How can we trust their results quantifying children's abilities to delay gratification. Mallomars, marshmallows dressed up with a crackly dark chocolate covering and a graham cracker bottom, yes. Plain marshmallows, never. And yet. The marshmallows on a kid-friendly shelf have surely tempted Adella.

“Pleee-eeaze,” Adella asks.

I acquiesce. For efficiency's sake. She perches the marshmallows on the top of her full cart and rushes to catch up. We then reach the toy aisle only to discover it is no longer the toy aisle but the wine section. And after a promise to stop at Walmart for the Play-Doh, we trek back across the store towards the checkout stands.

I turn down an aisle. Hallelujah, I think. I see a checkout stand, just beyond the end of the aisle. It has no line. I lean into my cart. I quicken my pace. My cart with the driverless car speeds towards that check out stand. I see only it. And just as I am about to cross the finish line, Adella calls out.

“Look Granma. The Play-Doh!”

And so it is. An entire wall of Play-Doh. Or so it seems. So we stop just short, at the end of the aisle. Delighted, Adella immediately launches into a monologue discussing the merits of each color.  Who knew there were so many colors of Play-Doh from which to choose?

Pop Pop looks at me. He looks like a man dying of thirst who has crawled across the desert to an oasis only to discover it is a mirage.

“I’m taking Marshall to the car,” he declares. 

Happily, I throw him the car keys. He has fought the good fight. And he is taking Marshall with him.

After much deliberation, Adella decides on blue. (Was there ever any doubt? Blue is her favorite color. Even her imaginary best friend Inga is blue.) And we finally make it to the checkout stand where I begin unloading my groceries.

It is clear this is not Adella’s first rodeo. She quickly unloads the groceries from her cart onto the conveyor belt and then heads to the bagging area. (Gotta love New Jersey: the only state where it’s illegal to pump your own gas but cashiers expect you to bag your own groceries.) Adella climbs the small stoop, leans over the end of the conveyor belt, and begins collecting her goods, which she returns to her little red cart. I throw my last few items on the conveyor belt, pull out my reusable grocery bags (You go, environmentally conscious grandma!), and hurry to Adella. I shake open a bag, and then reach into her cart and pull out a family size box of Go-Gurt and try to put it into the bag.

“Noooo,” Adella cries, grabbing the box back from me. “You can’t take those. I got them. They are mine. They belong in my cart.”

“But,”  I calmly reply, “we have finished shopping. Now it is time to put your things into a bag.”

“No, no, no,” she sobs.

I continue, “How will we put them in the car if we don’t put them in bags?”

But she will have none of my reasoning. So I calculate my tolerance for her stubborn independence. I am a grandma. I am used to my own ways. For forty years, I have carefully separated my ice cream from my salad, my meat from my cereal, and my eggs from canned goods, bagging my groceries so that I might most efficiently transfer them to my cupboards and refrigerator. I am not used to sacrificing the efficiency of my habits for the sake of nurturing the independence of a four-year-old. And what, I wonder, is the line between independence and recalcitrance? I am the grandma, the elder, who knows best. And yet I am still just the grandma, not her parents.

In the end, independence triumphs in this battle of efficiencies: it is more efficient to nurture (indulge) her burgeoning independence than to insist upon my need for efficiently bagged groceries. And my need for an efficient exit clearly trumps all other efficiencies. I want to go home.

So Adella loads her cart and I bag my groceries. And soon we are merrily exiting the store. As we exit the automatic doors, she spies a line of little red carts, waiting for other “Customers in Training.” She stops. She thinks a minute. She realizes she must leave her cart here. She is perplexed. She looks to me.

“Granma,” she says, “How will we get my things to the car?”

And that long dormant parental restraint kicks in, for I am thinking, “If only. . . . If only, you had listened to me in the first place.”

But I say, “Hmmm.”  

Then I pause. For effect as well as to contain both my laughter and my frustration.

“Why don’t we put them in one of my bags?”

Which we do. And as I help gather the plums, the “club size” box of cotton candy Go-Gurt, the marshmallows, the frozen (literally), Frozen (branded) popsicles, the Paw Patrol string cheese and the Party Cake ice cream, I begin to wonder. First, I wonder what planet I was on when Adella filled her little red shopping cart. But then I wonder about the nature of my own presumed independence and the patience of those who love me. For I depend upon my husband and my children, upon friends and benevolent strangers. I still depend upon my parents gone more than twenty years. And I depend upon Him who “lend[s]  [me] breath that [I] may live and do according to [my] own will . . . even supporting [me] from one moment to another.”

“There’s Pop Pop and Marshall,” Adella cries out, interrupting my reverie. Pop Pop is in the passenger side of the car engrossed in his iPad. Marshall is in the driver seat, “driving” my car.

Soon the groceries are loaded into the car and everyone is secure in their carseats. After a minute or two on the road, I finally heave a sigh of relief. Marshall has a popsicle. He is happy. Adella has her marshmallows. She is happy. Scott is out of the grocery store and calculating on his iPad. He is happy. Everyone is restrained. Once again I am truly in control. I am happy.

It is time once more for conversation. I start.

“So, Adella," I say, “You must really like marshmallows.”

"Yes," she promptly replies. "And I asked Mom to buy me some, but she was disrupted by cleaning the house. So I had to buy some myself."

I stifle a laugh. I do not know which amuses me more--imagining my daughter Chrissy disrupted by cleaning or the presumed independence of a four-year-old who bought marshmallows herself.