“Four is my favorite number,” Max declares.
I have suspected as much. He has just celebrated his fourth birthday two weeks before.
“Is it because you are four years old?” I ask.
With gravitas, he slowly nods his head. It is clear that a number so tied to his identity is a serious matter.
I smile. Four is such a delightful age. Especially on Max. He asks questions, much deeper than he realizes: “Granma, why did you need a new kitchen?” (Truth is, I don’t. ) He is anxious to help or comply: as soon as Pop Pop mentions how important running outside is, Max races up the basement stairs, runs to the kitchen, slides open the door, and begins running around the house as fast as his four-year-old legs can. And he has an unshakable confidence about the way the world should be: “Granma I fixed your snack basket,” he says. With the help of a chair, he has plucked the goodies from my upper cupboard shelves that I have hidden because of their mess factor and added them to my carefully curated snack basket. (A woven basket his great-grandmother used to collect eggs on the her expansive Virginia farm when she was not much older than he.)
What a gift for Pop Pop and me to have Max all to ourselves every morning for an hour and a half before we take turns driving him to preschool. It is the official year of Max, the middle child. We do not need to compete with video games, YouTube, or Netflix for his attention, as we might with his older siblings. And he does not need to compete with his siblings for our attention.
This age discussion has Max thinking. He asks, “Granma, how old are you?”
Hmm, I think. When I was young my father made a point of teaching me (and often reteaching me) that it was impolite to ask a lady her age or her weight. But that lesson is better taught another day: I do not want to stymie the glorious, unabashed life of this four-year-old.
Instead I ask, “How old do you think I am?” Always such an intriguing question with children.
“Ten,” he says, without hesitation. Then he adds, “Ten is big and and when you’re ten, you’re an adult.”
No need to dissuade him. Max is intrigued by numbers and ten is his current favorite. Ten minutes is how much longer he wants to play. Ten hours is how long he had to wait his turn. Ten days until Halloween or Christmas, whichever holiday he is discussing. To Max ten is not a cardinal number, it is a nebulous concept, as broad as tomorrow is to a toddler or infinity is to his math whiz sister Adella. Is ten his favorite because it is close to the outer limit of numbers he can comfortably count? Or is it because Adella will soon be ten? Regardless it pleases me that my grandson thinks first that I am young and second that I am an adult.
Soon Max disappears downstairs to the bowels of the basement to watch Pop Pop on the treadmill. Max enjoys watching Pop Pop on the treadmill. Especially on days like today when Pop Pop finishes his run and lets Max have a turn. Which today leads to their discussion of numbers, which Pop Pop shares with me when he emerges from the basement, sweaty and smiling, followed by Max.
Pop Pop reminded Max of the rules before his turn. Max must always wear his sneakers on the treadmill. He can only use the treadmil with an adult present. And he can never go past two, a safe, steady pace.
“But Pop Pop,” the ever observant Max protested. “It says six when you were running. I want to go to six.”
“Oh, no,” Pop Pop said in what I only imagine is his mock incredulous voice with a slight lilt of suppressed laughter that he uses whenever a grandchild seeks to push a boundary.
“You are not yet old enough to go at six. When you are older, maybe in a year, after you have another birthday, you can run at three. Then after more time, maybe another year or many more, you can run at four.”
“And when I am bigger I can go to six like you Pop Pop,” Max joined in. He gets the point.
Then he added, “When I am even older, I can run at ten like Granma. Granma goes at ten.”
Pop Pop laughed. “Well,” he said. “I don’t know about that. I am pretty sure that Granma can’t run at ten. Maybe she can swim ten laps for every six that I can swim, but I know I can run faster than she does.”
Max stood resolute, unconvinced. It would be like saying that his beloved Spiderman cannot shoot webs and swing his way among skyscrapers to rescue the downtrodden. To Max I am a superhero. It doesn’t matter that I have been hobbling around for six weeks due to a bit of nerve damage following surgery and that I am only now approaching my pre-surgery walking speed, more like a three. He thinks I can run at ten miles per hour.
After hearing of their conversation, I am tempted to revel in Max's adulation. But there is no time. It is time to go to preschool.
“Max, I’ve got to go put my pants on so I can take you to school,” I say. Gone are the pajama bottom dropoff days of Adella and Marshall, true dropoff days, when I waited in a queue of cars for a teacher, unaware of my attire, to open my car door, and let my little cherub out. Now I must exit my car to drop off Max at his preschool playground.
Max follows me into my bedroom. Modesty, be damned. As I swap my Christmas polar bear flannel pajama pants for a pair of joggers, he asks, “What size do you wear Granma?”
Perhaps I should have given him a version of my father’s lecture on a woman’s age and weight after all, I think. “Well,’ I say, “I wear a large.”
He persists, “But what size are your pants?”
“A large size,” I say again. No need to fill him in on all the details
Then he says, “I know, Granma. Your size is a ten.”
Oh, if only, I think. That ship sailed some time ago. And then he regales me with his logic. He is four and wears a size four. Marshall is seven and he wears a size seven. Because I am ten, then surely I must wear a size ten. Gotta love this child, I think, who has an undersized view of his oversized grandmother.
Soon we are in the car, counting off the few miles to preschool. We pass one stoplight, two stop signs, three fields with well over ten large rolled hay bales, and four grazing horses. Then Max announces, “There are headstones at my school.”
“Yes,” I agree. “That’s because your school is in an old church, and they often bury people at churches.”
“No,” he replies. “It is my school.”
“Well,” I say, “Your preschool is in the basement, and it is a church upstairs.”
“No,” he insists, “it is a school.”
“Well, maybe,” I counter, “On Sunday it is a church.”
He finally concedes. Then he adds, “And the headstones are for the hundred Zombies that Marshall has killed.”
So it seems I am not the only superhero in the family. I did not realize Marshall was also a Zombie slayer. I am curious what tales Marshall has told about his old preschool.
“Or maybe it was just ten Zombies,” he adds.
I chuckle, then ask, “And do you suppose that maybe, just maybe, those Zombies are pre-e-e-ten-n-d-d-d?” I say, hoping to make the answer obvious by drawing the word out. “Or real?” I barely whisper.
“Real,” he avows, shouting.
This time I concede by silence. I suppose it is inevitable. What else is he to believe when he has an Uncle Daniel and a Pop Pop who spent a road trip calculating the Zombie-free Safe Zone–the distance required to outrun the Zombies in order to be safe should their escape car breakdown on a freeway during a Zombie Apocalypse. (6.2 miles--Don’t ask me how they arrived at that figure. Not sure. And it should be noted that calculations fail to factor in the possibility of any Zombies lumbering up the freeway off-ramp against the flow of traffic.)
Regardless, there are no Zombies active today, and we get to the preschool safely. I park in the spot furthest from the Zombie graveyard. We exit the car, Max, fresh-faced and bright-eyed with his shiny, new backpack and clean back-to-school sneakers, and me with my slightly combed bed-head hair, puffy eyes hidden behind sunglasses, wearing loose, large-sized joggers, ragged t-shirt, baggy sweatshirt and the suede slippers I forgot to change out of before I got into the car.
Together, Max and I walk the path to the playground gate for dropoff.
I relish the moment. Basking in the warm autumn air, listening to the sweet chatter of preschoolers, and holding the trusting clasp of Max’s hand.
I smile contentedly. For I know that for the first, and perhaps the only time in my life, I am a perfect ten.
