Grandparents Day (Part 4)

After our visit to Random Granddaughter’s kindergarten class and observation of her performance as a cow in the bowdlerized dramatization of “The Gingerbread Boy,” we joined the mommies and RG for dinner at their house. After a very weary RG had gone to bed, we learned a little more of the back story of her attachment to BIP (Bad influence Peer).

As the private school has a preschool, fourteen of the sixteen children in the class were peers in preschool and already knew each other and had already formed social bonds before kindergarten began.

Who knows how friendships and bonds form at the age of five? Perhaps there was some initial chemistry between RG and BIP on the first days of kindergarten. However, as two children who found themselves as the outsiders in an already existing social group, there were powerful forces pushing the little girls toward forming a friendship.

The other interesting part of the equation is that BIP is the daughter of a billionaire. Her daddy’s name does not start with Bill or Paul or Warren, but he is someone who is probably on a first name basis with those people. Pictures indicate that her mother is quite beautiful. Other information indicates that she is a younger second wife and a former ambassador.

In any case, the mommies regard RG’s close attachment to BIP with some misgivings, and have been trying to get RG to extend her social horizons. Other children from her kindergarten class have been invited over to the mommies’ house for “playdates.”

Grandparents Day (Part 3)

Performing in front of a roomful of rich grandparents must have been stressful. I am sure that KT the kindergarten teacher was grateful when time for a break came. Many of the small classes at the private school have a teaching assistant. The young man who fills this role for RG’s class took the children to the playground; Grandma and I followed.

The children scattered to various play activities. I spotted RG and another little girl following the TA to an equipment shed. As I approached the conversation clued me in that the other little girl is someone I will call BIP for Bad Influence Peer.

The TA was telling the two little girls (in a gentle and kindly manner) that it was problematic to let them play together because they often got into trouble. They would have to promise to be good, he said, for him to allow their companionship for the rest of the day.

Eager to get to some favorite toys, they agreed. The TA handed them both some hand scoops and they ran off with them.

I followed at a discreet distance. Random Granddaughter and BIP were digging and scooping leaves and dirt in and out of holes with considerable intensity with the two scoops.

I looked at BIP with some curiosity. The word “fox” came to mind, for two reasons. First, she is very pretty. I have no doubt that when she is 15 she will be regarded by the boys as a “fox” (or whatever the slang for an attractive girl is by about 2020.) Second, she struck me as having a cunning, calculating expression, fitting the connotation of cunning, crafty.

I heard RG say to BIP, “Let’s be good today, so we can get to play together.” RG is trying to be a good influence I thought. I could not tell if it was working.

Grandma and I had errands to run and tasks to do on our day on the mainland, so we left, with plans to join the mommies and RG for dinner that night at their house.

Grandparents Day (Part 2)

Imagine a school which is something like a combination of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Stanford with a student body of highly intelligent, very creative, frequently neurotic young students. Most come from wealthy backgrounds, though there are a number of “scholarship” students as well, selected on a combination of merit and a desire to promote diversity. Instead of young adults ranging from late teens to early twenties, the students range from preschool to eighth grade. You will find something like the private school Random Granddaughter attends as a kindergarten student.

When Mrs. Random and I arrived for Grandparents and Grandfriends day, we were escorted into a lobby with the other Grands. We were quickly and efficiently registered, receiving a sticker displaying our name, our grandchild’s name and marked with a color indicating grade level (green in our case indicated our grandchild is a kindergartner). A large movie screen presented a show documenting a trip by eighth graders to Vietnam.

I joked earlier about RG “adopting” rich grandparents to get in their will. My prediction has had a slight detour with truth in a surprising way, which I will get to in a bit. However, Mommy (a teacher at this school) confirmed that the Grands day is in part a marketing promotion to bring in students and bequests for this expensive to operate private school.

 

After a brief wait a staff member welcomed us and described the plan for the day. At a little after 9 am the grandparents would go on a school tour, and then go to their assigned classrooms. However, we kindergartener grands were directed to go our grandchild’s class right away, so we missed the tour.

In our kindergarten (one of three) we found 13 children gathered around the teacher listening as she read to them. [Each classroom at the private school has 16 students; 3 were away on Thanksgiving travels.]

Grands gathered in a circle of folding chairs surrounding the class. The kindergarten teacher, whom I will refer to as KT, was a pretty, buxom young woman who spoke to the children enthusiastically and positively. Although I did not encounter the other two kindergarten teachers, I could see why Mommy had selected this woman as RG’s teacher.. The mommies try to be positive and upbeat with RG, and careful about what she encounters in the arts, to maintain her innocence and enthusiasm for life as long as possible.

KT read a story, more of a chant, actually, about picking things out of a bucket. The moral was to pick good things out of the bucket; things to be thankful for. The teacher then greeted the Grands and explained the children would perform “The Gingerbread Man” for our entertainment. The children gathered in groups by characters. Several children got to play each character. For example, there were two gingerbread men (both girls), one blond, one light brown. The characters were always referred to in the singular and performed, spoke, and sang in a group.

We saw Random Granddaughter in a group of three girls, each playing a cow, indicated by a hat with horns.. RG nodded slightly when she saw Grandma in the audience, but otherwise ignored our presence.

KT narrated the play and frequently prompted the children with lines and cues. Mommy later told us that this teacher loves to use drama in her class. “I generally avoid trying to direct plays cast with small children,” Mommy said with admiration.

At the end of Shakespeare’s King Lear, Lear goes mad after learning of the death of his daughter Cordelia. They play is often considered one of the most wrenching and depressing of Shakespeare’s tragic creations. For a time, a happy ending was tacked on to productions. As Wikipedia summarizes:

Nahum Tate produced an adaptation in 1681: he gave the play a happy ending, with Edgar and Cordelia marrying, and Lear restored to kingship. The Fool was eliminated altogether, and Arante, a confidant for Cordelia, was added. This was the version acted by Thomas Betterton, David Garrick, and Edmund Kean, and praised by Samuel Johnson.

This page provides a pretty typical version of the traditional Gingerbread man story.  When I worked as student teacher in ghetto public schools I sometimes told it to small children, taking great delight in presenting the tragic ending where the fox gobbles the runaway cookie man. As I remember, the little ghetto children (growing up in an atmosphere of crime and gangs) took some delight in the violent ending.

At the end of the kindergarten play, when it is fairly obvious that the fox is going to gobble the Gingerbread Man, all the characters gather in the meadow and have a jolly picnic in peace and love. This provides the uplifting and politically correct version of the story suitable for a private school for (mostly) rich children.

After the ending, the children all sang a song. Up to that point, Random Granddaughter’s acting (in what was obviously a bit part) had been a bit perfunctory, but when it came to the song, she participated with great enthusiasm, singing loudly and gesturing firmly.

After the conclusion, each child received a large paper apple and dropped it into a large symbolic Thanksgiving pot, telling the audience what they were thankful for. “My family” was a frequent choice. RG said, “My family…and trains, planes, and automobiles.” As I can say with some confidence that RG has never seen the movie of that title, it was an interesting contribution on her part.

At that point, the children went into the audience to sit on their grandparents’ laps. The grandparents were asked to share a favorite memory of their grandchild.

RG came and sat in my lap. Grandma shared, “We were present when RG first crawled by herself and when she took her first step.”

 

 

 

Grandparents Day (Part 1)

“Please take your toe out of your mouth,” said Grandma. It is fairly common for people to nibble at stubborn cuticles, but not many do it on a toenail.

I was reading a book to Random Granddaughter called Zoo Babies while Mommy fixed a roast chicken as a two days before Thanksgiving family dinner. Mama had been studying at the University, and had not arrived home yet. It was the evening of the day Grandma and I had visited RG at kindergarten on Grandparents and Grandfriends Day.

I had found the book at the recycling center, in the trailer where they stack books people dump in the waste paper and they think might be attractive to someone or other and they sell for about 50 cents or so. This book, copyright 1953, was attractive to me because my family owned it when I was nine years old so it made me nostalgic to encounter it again and to bring it as a gift for RG.

Later that night, after dinner, as we drove home toward the ferry, Mrs. Random said, “RG is very limber, being able to stick her toe in her mouth.”

I replied, “Perhaps she can show her trouble-making school friend how to do it and she can go home and impress her billionaire daddy. ‘Look what Random Granddaughter showed me how to do at the School for Very Bright Children,’ she will say when she gets home.”

 

[to be continued]

RG Enters Adolescence

My wife and I just spoke with Mommy (Random Granddaughter’s birth mom and my daughter’s partner) on the telephone. Life is fairly stressful for the family. My daughter is struggling with her graduate school classes, though it is hard to know what is going on as she always lamented she was failing all the way through school when she was doing fine.

RG (no surprise to me) is going through full-flown adolescence crises in kindergarten. She is picking the worst peers for buddies and acting up in class. Her food drama queen episodes have escalated beyond belief. She doesn’t have an inappropriate romantic friend yet, but that may only be because she is keeping him or her a secret.

Let’s see. It’s only November. Will she be suspended by January?

I Want to See 96. Not a Drop Less

This is Random Granddaughter grokking Grandpa’s password and taking over his computer by using my now awesome mental powers developed at the School for Very Bright Children.

Many people here are much taken with something called twitter and tweeting each other. We very bright children have moved so far beyond tweeting, not to mention, blogging, you obsolete adults can not even imagine it.

My friends and I have created an entirely new telepathic Internet. Even as we are indulging you artifacted parents and grandparents by saying “Please” and “Thank you” at the dinner table, we are communicating entire new works of literature and art and music you can’t even imagine, and sharing them by telepathy with your dogs and cats.

We are going to bring your dogs and cats with us as we transport ourselves into an an awesome new dimension and leave you behind. Then you will really be sorry you didn’t increase our allowances and let us stay up later when you had the chance.

Too late. Start crying. I want to see 96 teardrops. I am going to count every one. Not just 95, either.

 

Too many teardrops for one heart to be cryin’
Too many teardrops for one heart to carry on
Youre way on top now since you left me
Youre always laughin way down at me
But watch out now, I’m gonna get there
W’ell be together for just a little while
And then I’m gonna put you way down here
And you’ll start cryin ninety-six tears
Cry, cry

And when the sun comes up, I’ll be on top
You’ll be right down there, lookin up
And I might wave, come up here
But I don’t see you wavin now
I’m way down here, wonderin how
I’m gonna get you but I know now
I’ll just cry, cry, Ill just cry

Too many teardrops for one heart to be cryin’
Too many teardrops for one heart to carry on
Youre gonna cry ninety-six tears
Youre gonna cry ninety-six tears
Youre gonna cry, cry cry cry now
Youre gonna cry, cry, cry, cry
Ninety-six tears

 

Introducing the Third Va-Va-Voom Sister

Random Granddaughter is back on her own again, by now probably running marathons, playing Rachmaninoff piano concertos, and organizing her kindergarten class to overthrow the government. While she occupies herself with these trivial pursuits, I will return to my tale of the Va-Va-Voom sisters.

Before I proceed on to talking about V2’s younger sister, V3, I have to add one footnote, related to my example of memoirs having to do with breast cancer..

Shortly before I retired, I learned from V3 that her sister had come down with breast cancer. The last report I received, from V2 herself, was that her mastectomy had gone well and that she was doing fine. I have not been in touch with either sister since I retired. I should check on her. Also, I am reading a memoir by an undercover cop in Arizona who pretended to be a contract killer so he could forestall people with murder on their minds. It’s a pretty good book, and it should be right down V2’s alley.

While I was working with V2 and helping her find memoirs, she mentioned that her younger sister loved libraries and dreamed of being a librarian.

One day, as I was working at the largest library in the system, V3 introduced herself to me. Unlike her rather wan, waif-like sister, V3 is an attractive, vigorous woman with a positive upbeat manner. Although by the time I met her, I had become rather disillusioned with the library system, V3 took to it like a duck to water.

One of the problems I had with the system was that internally it operates rather like the British class system, or like a military organization. At the bottom, you have pages/privates, who shelve materials and are not allowed to talk with customers [patrons]. Next, you have assistants/non-commissioned officers, who check material in and out and wait on the public. Then you move up to the librarians, who are like the minor aristocracy/officers. The librarians have Masters degrees in Library Science. At the top of the organization, you find the dukes/duchesses, counts, earls/generals/admirals. The Director of the Library is equivalent to a King/Queen/Commander in Chief.

As most people who work in libraries are very liberal and politically correct, and are for the most part female, my analogies offend them quite a bit, though a few rogues and rascals would admit to me off the record, “Of course; that’s exactly the way we function internally.”

However, V3 moved quickly up the ladder without losing her pleasant demeanor and lively sense of humor.

I gradually learned: she is married to a man who works in something to do with intellectual properlty rights to cartoons. I never met her husband, but my impression is that it is a very happy marriage. She told me that they have no intention of having children.

As she already had an undergraduate degree, she entered the librarianship program as a graduate student at the university. Occasionally in my life I am by chance able to do someone a good deed at just the right moment; perhaps there is a minor gene for fairy godmother in my genetic makeup. Happily, the wand worked once again in the case of V3, as I shall describe in the next episode.

RG Studies Mathematical Ethics

The private school for very bright children presented a program to parents about their mathematics education. Random Granddaughter was supposed to demonstrate kindergarten math skills involving fractions. The sound system was faulty and produced loud feedback. Sensitive RG could not deal with the amplifier noise and fled to another room and started crying.

At the mommies house a few days after this unhappy experience, we talked about mathematics. Soon RG’s skills will outstrip mine, but I thought I might still have a useful tidbit to offer her.

I said, “Let me tell you how to divide a cookie fairly. One person divides the cookie. The other person gets to choose the half they want.”

RG understood the principle immediately. As she is a writer as well as a mathematician, she composed a parable about Mia and Alee. [Mia is her best friend who lives across the street; Alee is her younger sister.]

“Mia gets a cookie. She breaks it in half. She says to Alee, ‘You get to decide which piece you want.’”

“Exactly!” I said enthusiastically. “You can be sure that Mia will break the cookie very carefully, so both halves are very equal in size.”

Next week, RG goes on tour, lecturing to kindergarten classes across the country on the new field of mathematical ethics.

If RG Will Be Your Grandchild’s Boss Someday, Tell Them to Start Training Now…

“If Random Granddaughter some day supervises other employees some day when she has a career, she will not be a very patient boss,” I said to my wife. RG had been supervising my wife and me when we were taking care of her, and she was not very patient with us.

“RG was not very patient from the day she was born,” replied my wife.

From the age of zero to the age of four, RG was not allowed to watch videos on the theory that videos are harmful to developing little minds. Once she reached the age of four, her mommies decided she can watch one or two carefully chosen videos in a week, usually for not more than about twenty minutes of viewing time in a session.

One of the issues here is Can some of the most brilliant parenting of the century turn a brilliant young drama princess child into a wholesome human being? David Rochester is watching with interest from a safe distance as he works on reintegrating his fragmented personality into a wholesome human being.

May you live in interesting times is not a Chinese curse, but we certainly live in such times, do we not?

Anyway, the mommies asked the grandparents to babysit, perhaps because we work for free, while they took advantage of tickets to a concert that they also got for free. Free can be a very good price.

“Here is a DVD with wholesome videos for children,” Mommy (RG’s birth mother) said. She asked RG what videos she wanted to watch.

Click, Clack, Moo: Cows that Type, was choice #1. This is a recent but already classic book for children, a book now animated movie about cows that type messages to the farmer on a typewriter. Unless he provides them with electric blankets, they will stop supplying him with milk. The plot thickens from there.

As a child of modern times, however, I doubt that RG knows what a typewriter is. When I was a high school student, I actually used a slide rule because calculators had not been invented yet. I used a buggy whip to make my slide rule go faster.

Courderoy was RG’s second choice. This is a book (now video) about a lonely little black girl who falls in love with a lonely teddy bear in a department store. RG lives in a world of multi-cultural influences. She has two mommies and two daddies. She has an adopted aunt from Singapore. And so on.

The mommies left for their concert. Grandma and Grandpa and Random Granddaughter settled on the couch in front of the combination television monitor/DVD player. Grandma held the remote. Grandma tried to start the DVD going. Mr. and Mrs. Random have a couple of television monitors, DVD players, and remotes at home. It’s not like we are video virgins.

Grandma could not get the video to start. RG expressed impatience. Grandma has a tendency to use bad words when she is frustrated, but she is very careful around RG. The mommies are prissy, goody-goody lesbians who do not much like to be described as “lesbians” and who certainly do not want a five-year-old daughter to hear bad words from Grandma and Grandpa. As RG is now attending kindergarten, however; it is only a matter of time before the first f-bomb comes home with her like a puppy following her home. [The mommies like cats better than dogs, also, and resist getting RG a dog.]

Eventually, after several tries, Grandma brought up a menu of the videos. She selected the typing cows video and pushed “Play” on the remote. The story began. The cows typed messages and went on strike. RG watched with interest. I haven’t heard about her going on strike yet, but it is surely only a matter of time. She didn’t ask about typewriters. I guess she figured a typewriter is something like a computer.

At the end of the story, Grandma tried to get back to the main menu. Instead of bringing up the menu, the entire rebooted and loaded slowly. RG expressed irritation. Eventually the list of videos appeared. Grandma tried to choose and start Courderoy. Each time she did so, the entire DVD rebooted. It took a long time for the list of videos to appear on the screen. About the third time this occurred. RG expressed her impatience and irritation quite strongly. “Perhaps Grandpa knows how to use the remote better than you do,” she told Grandma.

Grandma pretended she did not hear that remark. I kept my mouth shut.

Grandma said, “This remote does not work like the remote we have at home.”

RG said, “My mommies get it to work” in a very condescending and exasperated tone. I kept my mouth shut.

Grandma kept trying. On the fifth try, Courderoy began to play. Grandma said, “I did exactly the same thing I did on the other four tries, but this time it worked.”

RG did not say anything, but her face displayed an expression that eloquently communicated, Sure it did, Grandma.

She watched half the video. Suddenly, she said, “Let’s stop the video. I am ready to go to bed.” She has apparently internalize the time limit for watching videos.

RG went upstairs, flossed and brushed her teeth, picked out a book about church mice and a friendly cat and a party for me to read, and went to bed very peacefully and amiably without any drama queen theatrics.

The next day I tried to use my laptop. The mommies have changed their ISP/wireless Internet connection again. I could not get my laptop to connect to the Internet.

Mommy said, “Mama set this up. I don’t know how to connect your laptop. [Mama was at the university studying calculus.] Perhaps you can go to the library (which is only a few blocks away). Perhaps you can take RG with you to the library.”

RG and I walked to the library. I sat on a couch in the children’s section while RG browsed for books.

In the past, RG picked out books at random. Now she is learning to read, and her kindergarten teacher gave her some guidelines for picking out books. I don’t remember the exact directions, but the run something like this.

Look at a book. Try to read a little bit. If maybe two words are new, then choose the book. If five or more words are new, don’t choose that book.

RG chose several books. I looked them over. They seemed like excellent choices. One of the books struck me as an excellent choice for David Rochester as well, so I have ordered the book on the Internet and it is supposedly on the way to David and his Amazon. I hope they like it. If they do, RG gets all the credit. If they don’t, it is my fault.

We went to the self-checkout. I tried to check out all four of the books at once. The self-checkout only checked out one. I had to reboot the self-checkout. This was exactly like the experience Grandma had the night before with remote and the video player. As I kept slowly rebooting the self-checkout, RG twisted restlessly and said, “Grandpa, aren’t you done checking out the books? I am ready to go home.”

Eventually we went home, had something to eat, and went to RG’s cross-country race where she sobbed, ran 1/2 mile, and smiled when she received a blue ribbon. If your grandchild is thinking about working for RG some day or marrying RG some day, tell him or her to start training right now, because she will be a bossy boss and a severe spouse.

Part 1: The Va-Va-Voom Sisters

The Va-Va-Voom Sisters are three sisters who live in the Pacific Northwest, whose first names all start with the letter “V.” I have never met the oldest, V1, who lives in Idaho. Although I haven’t seen them for a while, I consider V2 and V3, whom I met in my last job, when I worked for a library system, as good friends and charmingly eccentric people.

V3, the youngest, told me that their father is an airline pilot. His dream as a dad was to teach all three of his daughters to fly. Unfortunately, they all hate flying and get airsick. I presume they all still love each other, but if you are a parent, don’t get your heart set too much on your children loving your dreams and passions. None of the Va-Va-Voom girls will go up in a plane with dad.

In several chapters, I will describe why I enjoyed knowing them so much.