Today’s blog
Lynn Murphy Mark
Not A
There are a lot of things in life that bring me joy. At the top of the list are my two grandsons, Cameron and Alexander. At the bottom of my not-joy list is the fact that they live on the East Coast. They have busy lives, as do their parents, so opportunities to see them have to be planned in advance. Getting there involves the usual hassle of travel these days. Park the car at the airport? Uber to the airport? Check a bag? Crowded airports, especially the New York City ones, are tricky if you don’t know your way around, which we don’t.
But when all is said and done and we arrive where the boys live, the hassle is worth it. They are excited to see us and promptly start showing off their latest ninja fighting techniques. The energy they have is astounding. But they are young – five and soon to be four, so they can go for hours until they collapse in sleep.
We have a trip coming up this weekend. We are going to celebrate Alexander’s fourth birthday. He wants an Iron Man theme’d birthday, so I’m sure Jackie will decorate accordingly. Hopefully he won’t be disappointed when he opens our gifts. They were purchased when Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were all the rage in his world. Jackie assures me he will be delighted to get more action figures of any kind so he can stage wars among them. That has been his specialty since before he could talk – whatever objects he has in his hands get banged together as if they are in a boxing rink.
His latest cuteness? Well, his dad is worried because, at three years of age, he does not know his letters yet. Jackie, being the early childhood educator that she is, assures Momoh that this is still age appropriate. However, he does know the letter “A”, presumably because his name starts with it. But if you show him any other letter he will seriously study it and say, “Not A”. I think that’s pretty clever and very funny.
The boys are known for watching Disney movies at least a thousand times each. Alexander likes to learn a few lines from each one, then go around indiscriminately spouting the phrases he’s learned. This took a bit of a turn one morning when he went up to his preschool teacher and quoted a line from the movie, “Mulan”. He looked right at her and proclaimed, “You are such a disgrace!”. Jackie had to explain to the teacher that it was a line from a movie and that he doesn’t know what the word “disgrace” means.
However, he does know another D word. The other night he was concerned because Jackie couldn’t find the oil in which to fry his beloved tofu. He looked at her, quite worried, and said, “Mommy, we have a dilemma!” Except he doesn’t say his “L’s” just yet so he was describing a “diwemma”.
I was blessed to be at the birth of my first grandson, Cameron. That’s an occasion for another blog, but I don’t want to ignore Cameron in this one. He is 5 and ½ and started Kindergarten last Fall. He is, for his age, responsible and helpful and also funny. On one occasion when Alexander snatched a toy from him and Jackie was about to intervene, he stopped her and gave her a life lesson. “See, Mommy? Sometimes he takes from me and sometimes I take from him!” That’s how life balances itself out in his mind. On one occasion when everyone was in St. Louis, Ted and Cameron were playing legos for several hours. At the end of their lego time, Cameron declared Uncle Ted to be, “His very very most favorite adult friend.” What an honor.
For a long time I was not sure that I would ever be a grandmother. The Universe took care of that by arranging for Jackie and Momoh to get together and plan a family. In the seven years they have been together they made their plan a reality. They have two adorable, energetic, smart, kind kids. It doesn’t get much better than this.