Behind the Mike

One does not have to do anything to become a grandparent. It simply happens when your child has a child. It is up to you to decide how involved you will be in your grandchild’s life.

There is an inherent biological relationship but the emotional bonding between grandparent and grandchild comes only with effort. It happens when the grandchild sees that you are open to forming a relationship. It happens when you get off your easy chair and make the effort to see what matters to your grandchild.

On a good day, I am a distant second to “Grammy” in the hearts and minds of my beautiful granddaughters, Ashley and Ava. I have accepted this as the reality of life. Grammy is that kind of a person; everyone loves her because she is simply so extraordinary. She is the kind of human being that everyone loves– parents, brothers, sisters, in-laws, children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, friends and neighbors. In short, I wish I could be a fraction of the person my beautiful wife Christine is to all the people she influences every day of her life.

I’m used to finishing second. After all, I am a Dale Earnhardt, Jr. fan and a University of South Carolina Gamecock fan. I can tell you all about second place and how it feels to finish there.

Still, I get those private moments with “my babies” as I affectionately call them. The Arabic word I liken them to is “hiyetti” which roughly translated means “my heart or my life… the breath of my life.” Ava and Ashley are the breath of my life.

My babies call me “Jiddo” which is the Arabic word for grandfather. We have our rituals which we honor. For instance, when we pack them up to send them home with their parents, I always tell them “be bad!” And they quickly respond with two things: “No Jiddo, you have to make good choices… be good!” Then they say “Grammy, you need to put Jiddo in time out!” I can hear their giggling and laughter all the way down the street as they drive away from our home. If nothing else, I suppose I serve as a good “bad example.”

Another favorite ritual is when I take on the role “Jiddo bear.” I pretend to be speaking as Ashley’s teddy bear. We were recently eating out in Orlando and the girls were doing what they always do- -playing with their food and not really eating the cheese pizza that sat in front of them.

To the rescue comes “Jiddo bear.” In the squeakiest voice I can muster, the “Jiddo bear” toddles over to the pizza tray and pretends to eat a bite of their pizza. Then “Jiddo bear” burps, which they find hilarious. Next, he sits and pats his belly as if he’s full. Again, they thought this was the funniest thing ever. And the ritual goes on and on.

This is what granddaddies must do. They have to carve out a little slice of their grandchildren’s life that only they can occupy- not the parents and not Grammy.

Another of our rituals is done poolside. My babies are just learning to swim without the floaties. This is a particular challenge because they went kicking and screaming through the process so I’ve turned it into a game. I figure if keeping score is good enough for Olympic divers it’s good enough for my babies. So I take up residence in the “Jiddo cubbyhole” as the girls call it, which my corner seat in the pool. They dive and I keep score, signaling a “ten” every time. Okay, so I cheat! It’s my job.

It’s my job to lose at tick-tack-toe to Ashley. It’s my job to be put in “time out” for pulling some of the shenanigans that granddaddies pull. It’s my job to lie on my bed and let them decorate me with flowers or to “do my hair.” It’s my job to let them jump on the trampoline, which is my bed.

Just do your job grandparents and carve out a little slice of your grandchild’s life. The memories you craft will last forever, for you and for them.

I never had daughters so this whole father/daughter Valentine’s Dance gig is a bit foggy in my mind. My pea-soup memory notwithstanding, I’m now part of the grandfather/granddaughter dance scene in the little village of St. Cloud, Florida, where I reside these days.

My three sons and I did the Boy Scout routine and Pop Warner football growing up. This is stuff with which I can identify, though remotely. For instance, I was not a very good scoutmaster for my kids. We did knots for about ten minutes and I gave up that ghost after the first meeting.

Overnight campouts weren’t much more rewarding because I don’t rough it so well. My idea of toughing it out is no remote control on the HDTV. And at the one attempt of a weekend campout, I forgot to bring clean underwear to change. No problem, I recall some advice from my fellow speaker Jeannie Robertson, CSP, CPAE, who said you can turn dirty underwear inside out and they’re good for three more days.

So the village of St. Cloud, Florida decided to do this daughter/granddaughter gig on the shores of East Lake Toho in a very nice facility they own right above Crabby Bills, a local watering hole where yours truly enjoys a Yuengling from time to time along with some great seafood.

My wife, Christine, was decidedly beside herself that she could not be a part of this Valentine’s weekend party, so I decided to take her out to eat at Crabby Bills, where we met the son of the chain’s founder at dinner. He wasn’t very crabby at all; in fact he was nice! He was in town to visit his money on the shores of East Lake Toho.

Just as we finished eating, Casey, my daughter-in-law, wheeled up with my beautiful grandbabies, Ashley Elizabeth (4) and Ava Emily (2). Since my sons were busy judging a weightlifting meet in nearby Kissimmee, it was up to fellow grandpa (Jerry Patterson) and yours truly to get the girls upstairs for the big party.

Their daddy, Cory, showed up in just the nick of time, changed into a suit in the head and we all moved upstairs in our suits and ties with the two little ones in tow, wearing their new dresses that they donned for Uncle Christopher’s wedding some seven months earlier.

Whoever invented this gig never had to chase a two year old around for two hours in a dance hall. Dancing is a misnomer; running laps would be more accurate. It finally occurred to me that I should grab a seat and let Ava just do her laps around the dance hall.

I lasted about ten minutes before handing the baton to Grandpa Jerry. Fortunately, Uncle Jason (Cory’s twin brother) showed up in just the nick of time and rescued both of us, allowing us to grab some leftover goodies from the buffet line, most of which included every form of sugar known to man. That’s precisely what Ashley and Ava needed… a little more sugar to wire them up! Our favorite candy was the lollypop pacifier which looked great in our mouths in the picture they took of me and the girls.

As the music pounded away, Jerry observed to me that the selections would not have been his first choice. What is a “Black Eyed Pea?” he asked me. The blank look on my face said it all, and then I recall that it was a halftime show at this year’s Super Bowl.

Finally, after an hour and ten minutes into the two hour dance, I grabbed Jerry and we headed downstairs to the watering hole to fill up on a Blue Moon (for Jerry) and a Yuengling (for yours truly). Ain’t nothing like a hunk of orange inside your beer. I’ve got to get some vitamin C along the way to help with my energy to chase after Ava and Ashley.

We hit our fill after two rounds and headed back upstairs just in time to look like we were responsible grandfathers. We grabbed the long stem roses the City of St. Cloud had provided for the dance (finally getting some return on my tax dollars) and took the elevator down to load the kiddies up for the ride home.

My daughter-in-law Casey wheeled up in her SUV to load up the girls and my wife Christine wheeled up behind her in my car to take the worn out grandfathers and Uncle Jason home. As the old saying goes… “A good time was had by all!“

When you have scores of uncles, aunts, cousins, grandparents and great grandparents all within driving distance and you’re the only grandbabies to be doted over, face it: Christmas is going to be close to ridiculous when it comes to the stack of presents.

In my house alone, my two beautiful grandbabies must have had over 50 packages. My wife is absolutely determined to spoil these kids rotten given half the opportunity. Ashley, age 4, gets a big kick out of opening the presents but quickly loses interest in the present and moves to the next.

Ava, who is only two, fumbled through one present and pretty much gave up the ghost. Too much work and who cares? So she wandered into the other room where my wife had opened a huge box that contained a new chair for her computer station. What is it about empty boxes and kids?

As Ava has wondered to the other end of the house with me in tow, I limped along on my brand new flaming cane which I got from my son Jason and his wife Jessica. She goes into their toy room (yes, they have their own toy room in my house…I remind you my wife is determined to spoil the tar out of these kids). There she locates her dad’s Christmas gifts which we gave to him when he was only two over three decades ago- two Tonka trucks.

Nothing is built better than a Tonka truck. Both Ava and Ashley are actually small enough to sit in the body of the dump truck. Back when I was able to bend over and push them around, I would give them a ride in their daddy’s 30-year old dump trucks.

So Ava retrieves her fleet of Tonka equipment and heads down to the den where the empty box is waiting to be hauled to the trash. NOT! That’s the new garage for the Tonka truck fleet, which, by the way, includes a working crane as well.

What is it with kids? Here they are with scores of toys and gifts which they could care less about. Give them a couple of 30-year old toy trucks and a durable box and they’re good to go for the rest of the day.

I realize there is some unwritten grandmother rule that says you’re supposed to buy hundreds of dollars worth of crap for your grandkids. Why? Just because there’s this rule that suggests it’s your job to spoil them? I don’t know who is worst- my wife (Grammy) or their other grandmother (Granny).

Parents establish these rules and boundaries and my wife Christine and her partner in crime, the other grandmother, Debbie, are constantly moving the borders around. Eating, for instance, is an impossible challenge for four year old Ashley. I’ve never seen the kid eat real food, which is why she and Ava, two years her junior, are the same size. They could actually pass for twins if you just looked at their height and weight.

Ava never met a jellybean she didn’t like. As soon as she arrives at Grammy’s house she makes a beeline for the infamous jellybean stash in the den. Poor Casey, her mom, warns her to take only two. Ava complies, grabbing two handfuls of jellybeans, which she clinches like a vice-grip. God bless me. What’s with the grandmother’s disdain for the rules?

My favorite gift to my grandbabies was a recorded book that I did with them in my bed, “Frosty the Snowman.” Technology is wonderful. You can narrate a book with your own voice and the voices of your grandchildren.

So here we are sitting up in Jiddo’s (Arabic for grandfather) bed recording the book, just one week after my hip surgery, with Ava on one side and Ashley on the other.

The most precious part of the recording was their comments in the background. As I would identify everyone and comment on what they were saying on each page, Ashley would remind me “And don’t forget Grammy is here too!”

The last page of the book had us all singing the last verse of the jingle together. What a gift to unwrap and replay in thirty years. My guess is it will have the durability of two Tonka trucks and an empty box.