Grandparent's Weekend
Being grandparents has such great advantages. We can enjoy our granddaughters until we get
tired and then we give them back. That's
the rule, right? In practice, this
doesn't always happen though. This
weekend, for example, our daughter Dorie
asked if we would watch the girls while she and our son-in-law Gregg spent the
night at a lovely resort for her birthday.
No problem! We could handle
that. Easy-peasy!
First of all I decided to take our almost 13 yr old
granddaughter shopping. I hadn't done
this in a long time and thought that it would be a fun activity. I asked Skip
if he would watch Lilly (our 3 1/2 year old granddaughter) while I took Julie
to the mall. We got a late start which was largely due to the fact that I was
making breakfasts, cleaning up, preparing for Easter, getting Lilly dressed and
occupied, taking care of my mother, and
trying to keep things clean and neat. By
the time we left the house I was already tired.
Off we went to the throngs of people bustling about on a busy
Saturday. I asked Julie what stores she
preferred and immediately realized that we would be visiting many different
stores because Julie wasn't sure what she wanted and where she wanted to
go. I didn't want to rush her but I knew
that we had only a limited time to shop before Skip would need relief. I felt a little guilty leaving him behind to
watch Mom and keep Lilly occupied. I
worried that he might be a bit overwhelmed with that responsibility.
When we got to the mall I had to make a quick decision where
to go because I had no idea which stores might appeal to Julie. I have to confess that I have weaned myself from mall shopping and am
not "up" on all of the latest trends among teens. I do not set foot in the trendy stores. So, as we walked into the first store I had
the distinct feeling that I had somehow traveled to another planet--one filled
with bright colors, loud music, sparkle on the floors and sweet smells of
myriad perfumes. Just in case I missed
the labels on clothing, every single item was adorned with large print on
sleeves, across the front and back with the name of the clothing line. Every person under the age of 25 was a
walking advertisement for a t-shirt or sweatshirt designer. Furthermore they all seemed happy to pay anywhere
from $60 to $200 to advertise who they were wearing. My granddaughter was immediately drawn to one
such shirt that looked like it was missing a good 10 inches off the bottom
length. Really...a sweatshirt that only
covered the shoulders and part of the upper torso? I guess no one would notice the missing
fabric because the name of the singer who now had her own clothing line was so
huge that was all one would see. I began
to look around to see how many labels we could combine in one outfit. Could we combine labels to make sentences? With wry wit I tried to play this game as
Julie perused the racks. I wondered if
it was permissible to mix a sports figure label with a singer, or were we
supposed to keep performing artists together? Could we mix two different sports figures? Did we need to have continuity of names or
could we combine themes? I had so many
questions. Unfortunately I couldn't hear the answers through the cacophony of
loud music and heavy rhythms. After five minutes I had already developed a
headache. I painted a smile on my face
and muscled my way through the store trying to look totally cool while feeling
like I had fallen through The Rabbit Hole.
I was too old for this. In just a
few short years I had become an anachronism,
a relic of bygone times. Rather than
admit I was feeling like an antique I waited until Julie went into the fitting
room to text my daughter to ask if she approved of certain items of clothing
that Julie insisted would be fine to wear.
Surprisingly, there was no need to do so because Julie had used her
smart phone to take a photo of something she liked and sent it to her mother
for approval. Dorie already saw,
responded, and okayed the purchase.
Hmmm...shopping had changed. Technology had become the new shopping tool.
Okay then! I relaxed a bit knowing that the
responsibility of making a decision of what Mom and Dad would allow was not on
my shoulders.
We moved on to another store and after what seemed like eight
hours but was in reality only about a half an hour, we found a few other items
and I even managed to talk Julie into a few things that didn't have printing on
them. I used a bribe of taking her out
to a late lunch to get her to make her decisions quickly and to choose
something with fewer graphics that she could wear in the restaurant.
With aching feet I limped my way out of the mall after being
accosted by people in the center isles hawking their products, insisting that I
try their creams, their manicure products, their hair extensions, their
shampoos, candles, and fragrances...practically tripping me as I walked
by. My lips were pursed in a permanent
"NO!" My eyes were averted like
I had learned to do when approaching panhandlers.
At lunch I texted
Skip to check in with him. He texted
back that he was coloring 100 bunnies with Lilly. I giggled at the mental image. It was not as complete an image as the one
that we beheld when we arrived back home.
Skip was surrounded by all sorts of toys and playthings. He was sitting at the table with assorted
crayons and a coloring book. As we walked in he proudly displayed a page of
flowers that he and Lilly had just finished coloring. When he turned towards me I noticed that his
shirt boasted an array of flower and
princess stickers. I walked into the
family room to say "Hi" to my mother.
She was sitting quietly in her chair by the TV. Her eyes were closed as she took a small nap. Did she know that she too had been decorated
with stickers?
Both Skip and I had taken a step into our granddaughter's
worlds. It had been a day of adapting. We had seen the polar opposites and both of
us had been totally out of our element...our comfort zones. Fortunately we lived
to tell the tale and still profess that grandparenting in one of the finest
joys in life.
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