For the last seven years, since the birth of my granddaughter, and then a second granddaughter one year later, my home has seen many arrivals of children. As a widower who hasn’t had kids in school since 2008, the girls are pretty much the only young children in my life. The theme song of this family dynamic? “Over the river and through the woods to grandfather’s house we go.” It has been a blessing as I reached and surpassed age 70.
I know it won’t be like this forever. Kids grow out of the novelty of visiting grandparents. Already, especially with the seven-year-old, I’m being usurped by activities with her own kind. The six-year-old has always keyed off her older sister. If there’s a classmate’s Saturday afternoon birthday party, or a family friend’s kid has a Friday night sleepover, I’m bypassed in favor of that.
And they don’t look back. On the precipice of the teen years, with young friends, activities, and the promise of independence exerting an inexorable pull, the fun of going to Grandpa’s house will dissipate. And it should.
Still, I’ve probably got a few years with the girls still getting excited about coming over—assuming there isn’t a better invitation in the mix. The older granddaughter has a boyfriend she likes, a rival next to whom I become a politely shunted plate of chopped liver. The younger granddaughter is going through a rebellious stage that often comes in the kindergarten year, the first year of real school. She gets on the rambunctious school bus and wilding playground a taste of life outside the protective cocoon of family, the misbehaviors and capricious betrayals, the teasing, rejections, and social competition. The older girl, now in second grade, has manufactured out of Freud’s theoretical ego and super-ego a resilient veneer. It isn’t easy; either girl can break into tears when the bugaboos of exhaustion and disappointments arise.
There’s only so much Grandpa can do to ameliorate the misfortune in his quiet, leaf-strewn neighborhood. His 100-year-old house, with glass doorknobs and a cobwebbed basement. Weighing in my favor is the fact that I’ve kept virtually every toy my own children ever had. Jurassic Park lives in the playroom. You won’t believe the Star Wars collection. I’ve got a fully intact 1991 BMC Normandy Invasion playset, and enough Lincoln Logs to build an outhouse.
But the time’s coming when my granddaughters will put away childish things. When the last scare has been rung out of H.R. Giger’s action-figure Alien. When the lightbulb finally goes out in the Easy-Bake Oven. I see a future with two teenage granddaughters waving and saying, “Hi-Bye Grandpa” on the way to adulthood.
There’s a kicker here. Don’t hate me for leaving this O. Henry-esque twist for last. There’s a new kid on the block, a boy, six months old. My daughter’s one hell of a breeder. I’ll be 80, God willing, when he starts to lose interest.