Old Dog Learns New Tricks

Imagine my surprise upon discovering that my grandkids teach me most of what I need to know as a grandparent. And here I thought I would teach them.
After all, I’m the one who is full of the wisdom of experience, while they are empty vessels waiting to be filled with the ways of the world.
Instead, I have found that their innocence and inexperience are the very teaching skills from which I can learn at this point of my life, which has pivoted around journalistic deadlines, multi-tasking, and, well, an OCD tendency to let the tasks direct me rather than vice versa

I was naïve enough, and egotistical enough, to believe that I had a good sense of important values. Then the boys took me to school on some values I lagged in, such as goal setting, optimism, flexibility, courage, patience, persistence, and the pivotal priority that people should be the most important focus of my life

So, this old blog dog has learned new tricks from the lads, such as

* Goal setting: Perched on one branch of the family tree is Anthony, a 16-year-old who has been an athletic juggernaut in baseball and, to some extent, soccer. A fan of sports of all sorts, he surprised me when he decided to play football in high school. He had not taken to the gridiron previously. His build was slight, and I had assumed that he wouldn’t like the smackdown nature of the sport

But he set the goal to play football, and he transformed his slight build into one of might. He persistently pumped iron to pack muscle onto his skinny frame, sans steroids, of course. (And now, he even dons boxing gloves on occasion.) I don't have a photo of him handy, but if he's like all the other kids these days (from 9 to 90, actually) he probably has a MySpace page or some such somewhere out in cyberspace.

* Optimism: On another family tree branch are 7-year-old Vincent and his brothers, Jack and Luke (in the photos accompanying this installment, the top one, courtesy of Hardage Photography, was taken when Vincent was 3+ and Jack, 1+; in the second one, the tot holding the flower is Luke, at about one and a half). Vincent's forte is optimism. He envisions a goal and harbors unswerving faith that he will achieve it, such as his belief that he would get a train set for Christmas. After his mom explained that it would strain the family budget, he countered, “But Santa can bring it, and you can get me something else, cheaper.” His optimism was rewarded when his parents, or Santa (I can’t remember which), found an eBay deal on a train set

Even more optimistic was his secret Christmas wish to have a baby join the clan, against all odds. His parents didn’t even know about it, PLUS, the rule at his house is that Santa gives each child two presents. When Melissa and Skip discovered a month after Christmas that there was a surprise bun in the over, Vincent reacted by saying, repeatedly, “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it

He finally explained the object of his disbelief: “I can’t BELIEVE Santa finally gave me three presents

His optimism was rewarded with a new brother, so I have to add the recently born Patrick to Vincent’s family tree.

* Flexibility: This trait could apply to the physical demands I sometimes face because of 4-year-old Jack’s penchant for roughhousing, such as the time I was napping on the floor and he did a WWE raw leap from the couch onto my stomach.
But I’m referring instead to his mercurial changes in interests and moods. We can be in the middle of one activity, and he’ll jump ship without warning to another. One minute, he can be delighted with the smallest thing, and the next, devastated over the tiniest slight

* Courage: Luke’s overcoming some serious health challenges has made the 2-year-old an inspiration. He has endured several painful, and just darn inconvenient, therapies to take the upper hand in his life

* Surprise: Patrick, well, he was a surprise just by showing up. And since he’s but an infant, maybe I can teach him a thing or two. (Or maybe he could teach me how to scan his picture to post it here

So there you have it, the pedagogues in my life. One of the most important values I have learned at the feet of my grandchildren is the value of time. Not the value of time spent at work, which I held dear in my youth as justification of my existence. But rather, time spent with them. (Not that I didn’t do plenty of camping and fishing and hockey-team ferrying and soccer coaching with my own kids, but grandkids are different animals, you know

I saw evidence of this at Jack’s preschool the other day. The teacher had had students list things that make them happy and sad. For sad, he said: “When there’s nobody to play with.”
Often, he wants to play with me, and I have to remember that

Just a couple of weeks ago, Melissa said the boys were hoping I would take them fishing. I alibied that it was too hot, and that the lake was too high, and tossed in a couple of other trumped-up reasons. After hanging up the phone, I felt guilty for making excuses instead of exceptions

So I got some worms. And we fished. More than that, we CAUGHT fish. But most important: We spent time with each other.

I’m hooked on my teachers.