Lessons Learned From Little Ones

My grandson DJ turns four next week. As his parents and younger brother and I gather around the family room, we laugh. We ogle at how he towers over his two-year-old brother at the Brio train table, and we giggle at his continued fascination with all things mechanical. When Covid arrived and upended everyone’s lives, DJ and I spent two days a week together so his parents could work from home.

“DJ?” I say, “Remember when you and I used to go to the car wash together? I took Grampa’s car for a wash today.” 

DJ dishes me a quick smile and returns to loading cargo onto the white wooden Brio barge.  As we lose him to the lift-and-load gadget on the train table, my daughter and I reminisce. 

On one of the Fridays when DJ had been mine for the day, I’d picked him up from their home around eight-thirty. Our first stop was the drive-thru window at the local coffee shop. 

As we waited for our turn in the serpentine line of cars, I’d quizzed DJ, “Would you like milk or apple juice today?” 

“Cake pop,” he shouted as he kicked his chubby legs into the passenger seat back.

“Ok. Cake pop. Do you want milk, too?” 

“Juice, Yu-Yu! Juice!” 

Back then, DJ was two and still working on his “L’s.” My fear had been that when I became a shriveled-up, ninety-seven-year-old lady in a nursing home, I’d still be known as “Yu-Yu.” And, at that final stage in life, nobody would have known how my chosen grandma name had morphed from “Lulu” to “Yu-Yu.”

So, as I inched the car closer to the ordering kiosk, I emphasized the correct pronunciation of my grandma name. “Okay, DJ, your Lulu will get you an apple juice and a cake pop.” 

After our usual stops at the car wash and post office, DJ and I headed to the beach or pool, so that he could run off the potent sugar buzz for which I’d paid handsomely. 

My daughter scoots over from her perch on the floor to help DJ line up the Brio’s wooden fuel station with the train engine. My insides warm as I recall how on our days together DJ watched me from his car seat as I pumped gas into the Tahoe. I’d wave to him through the open car window, and he waved back.  After snagging the receipt for the service station’s express car wash, I replaced the pump handle and opened the car door. 

“Close the door, Yu-Yu. ‘Member?” DJ hadn’t meant the driver’s side door. He was reminding me to close the little round door into which I’d pumped gas. Chuckling at DJ’s perceptiveness, I closed the latch on the fuel injection system, climbed behind the wheel and put the car in gear.

DJ shouted another order. “Mask off, Yu-Yu! Mask off.” 

Back then, my grandson and I had done this fill-the-car-with-gas-and-go-through-the-car wash drill a half-dozen times. I knew anxiety was building up inside of him. The machinations of the car wash fascinated and intrigued him. Thrilled him. But the combination of the flood of bubbles–which obscure visibility–and the dramatic thud-thud of the rinse cycle challenged his fledgling coping skills. DJ’s insistent tone had been less about him being leery of my mask–one that made his “Yu-Yu” look less like his beloved grandmother–and more about struggling to control the cocktail of fear-joy brimming up inside his little body.

At the entrance to the car wash, I entered the code off the gas receipt and pulled forward. As we waited for the green light go-ahead, DJ’s voice shifted to a whisper.

“Hold hand, Yu-Yu. Hold hand!” he muttered.

I remind my daughter about DJ’s old fear of the car wash and dislike of masks. 

“I forgot about that,” she says. “Now he loves to go to the car wash, and he thinks nothing about wearing a mask at preschool.”

The first time we navigated the car wash routine together, I’d been puzzled by DJ’s sudden show of anxiety. Then, I’d clicked out of my seat belt and threaded an outstretched palm through the seats. As the car lurched into the wash chamber, DJ clutched my long fingers around his small ones and fixed a steely gaze at the windshield. When I returned DJ home at dinnertime, I quizzed his dad.

“Just a little anxiety, but it didn’t mean he didn’t enjoy it,” my son-in-law verified.

Beautiful, I’d thought. My grandson had the sense to express his need for soothing touch so that he could experience something which he was profoundly interested in.

As I watch DJ and his brother enjoy the Brio train set, I marvel at the lessons I take away from the time I spend with them. For every experience in life, a joyful moment comes because of conquering some amount of fear. Days with the boys mean enacting a relaxed agenda, regarding the world with a finer focus, and appreciating the resulting magic. The time spent together, was and is, not without moments of frustration, a few tears, and a test of wills, but there is always laughter and inspiration. The days I spend with any of my grandchildren are a marvelous contrast, and a reset to the six other days when I must navigate our crazy world as an middle-aged adult.

Upcoming Events & Other News

• Barbara Linn Probst, a fellow She Writes Press author (read my interview with Barbara here) has a new novel coming out in October called The Color of Ice.  Set in Iceland’s otherworldly landscape and framed around the magical art of glassblowing, THE COLOR OF ICE has been called “exquisite … passionate … stunning … brilliant … remarkable and utterly engrossing.”
• Goodreads is doing a Giveaway of 20 free copies of The Color of Ice. Enter here between July 18 and August 8. Good luck! 🍀🍀
• Coincidentally, after I return from my own trip to Iceland (can’t wait), I’ll be speaking to Deb. B’s Long Beach Book Group (Indiana) on August 13th.
• If you would like me to speak to your Book Club about my first memoir, Twice a Daughter, contact me here.

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