CHAPTER THREE

The Resident Grandchildren

 

Olivia never walks down the stairs of our house. Actually, she rarely even runs down them. Her preferred travel mode is the jump: Three steps from the bottom. Four steps from the bottom. Five steps from the…

“Stop that, Olivia. Stop that right now,” shouts her father. “One of these days you’re really going to hurt yourself.”

Alexander pretends that he can’t possibly imagine where his daughter acquired such risk-embracing behavior. All of us know, however, that the gene was passed directly to her from him. As a person who, at Olivia’s age, climbed onto the wing of the plane ride at the amusement park because riding on the inside was just too boring, Alexander is reaping what he has sowed. Once upon a time he used to call me—fondly, I tell myself—his paranoid and overprotective mother. Now, and I must admit I take some pleasure in recording this, he is me.

(Well, almost me. I still could give him a few instructions in worrying.)

The past is also repeating itself in other, less potentially perilous ways. For instance:

O and I are sitting on the wall-to-wall carpeted floor of my home office, where I’m teaching her the art of building card houses. “Find the balance,” I urge her as her tented structures wobble and collapse. She grows increasingly frustrated and I try to help by offering her a mantra: “Cats meow, dogs bark, pigs oink, and card houses fall down,” I briskly say to her. The mantra seems to work. We keep on building.

My husband, watching us building, sneezes loudly, sneezes again, then sneezes once more. Our house is going up. Uh-oh, it’s down. “Cats meow,” says Olivia. “Dogs bark. Pigs oink. Card houses fall down. And papas sneeze—very very loudly.”

We start all over. Persistence finally pays off. We construct a house using every card in the deck. Alexander, standing at the doorway of my office, is grinning broadly.

“I sat on this floor and I did the same thing when I was a little boy,” he tells Olivia. “I sat right here and my mom taught me to build card houses.”

With Olivia in my life on a daily basis, there are many other things I am able to teach her. Like checkers and a variety of board games. Like word games: What’s the opposite of “happy”? Can you give me three words that rhyme with “bite”? And like a bouncing-ball alphabet game from my childhood that begins—pick your own nouns: “‘A’ my name is Anna and my husband’s name is Albert and we come from Alabama and we bring back apples. ‘B’ my name is Betsy and…” straight through to “Zelda, Zero, Zimbabwe, and zebras.” Try it; you’ll like it.

We also draw pictures, sitting side by side at the kitchen table, and do jigsaw puzzles, at which she’s much better than I. “JuJu,” she often says, quite patronizingly, to me, “if you’d practiced puzzles instead of reading so much when you were little, you wouldn’t be so terrible at them now.” But after completing her sixty-piece puzzle in truly record time, she always condescends to help me with mine.

“I’m good at doing puzzles,” she says. “I’m good at writing books,” I reply defensively. “Different people have different things they’re good at.” And later, when I’m moaning about how incredibly long it’s taking me to fit just four of these stupid pieces together, Olivia gives me a pat on my hand and reminds me, “Different people have different things they’re good at.”

As the mother of three sons who rarely if ever patted my hand and who dressed and smelled like street people till the day that they discovered the opposite sex, I’ve found it a revelation to have two granddaughters, especially since both of them (despite O’s risky habits) are deliciously, unequivocally girly-girls. My firstborn—hazel-eyed, movie-star-gorgeous Miranda—lives far away, in Denver, Colorado, which means that even with visits back and forth on agonizing United Airlines we see each other just five or six times a year. (Though now that she has acquired her own e-mail address, we may begin to be in more frequent contact.)

Because they’re less regularly in our lives, we don’t know our Denver grandchildren or our New York ones as day-to-day intimately as the ones from D.C. We’re aware that Brandeis, aka Bryce, is at seven an adept and passionate athlete, and almost impossible to beat at checkers. We’re aware that Nathaniel, age four, is a gutsy kid who, even when scared, will physically challenge himself, and who loves riding scooters and making up games with his friends, and whose powers of persuasion can get his parents to do what he wants, even if they’ve already said no three times. We’re aware that Benjamin, just turned two, can count to fifty and speak in perfect sentences and may, in our humble opinion, be a genius. And we’re also aware that Miranda (along with being a fine artist, an avid reader, and wonderfully sweet with all of the younger kids) is a major Fashion Person, with—at the age of only eleven—the best, most inventive taste in the whole family.

In a talk with Miranda on the subject of our shared pleasure in clothes, I once said that I thought it was quite okay to be a Fashion Person as long as that wasn’t the only thing we were, as long as we cared about clothes within the context of larger matters that we cared about. I told her that we were allowed to be concerned about purses and peace, and I plan to discuss this with O when she’s a bit older. But right now we simply revel in dressing up after taking a leisurely shower together—since she moved in I rarely shower alone—while checking out each other’s choices in dresses and skirts, in pants, sweaters, shoes, and jewelry. We also do makeup together, playing with powder and lipstick and blush—“Don’t want to look like a clown,” she repeats after me. And if she or I, in her judgment, has managed to put ourselves together especially well, she’ll confer upon us her ultimate accolade: “Stylish!”

Olivia—who has never displayed any problems with low self-esteem—has made it clear that she views herself as not only a lot more stylish but also much better-looking than her grandma. She decides to solicit her grandfather’s concurrence.

Olivia: “So Papa, who is prettier—JuJu or me?”

Milton: “I wouldn’t answer that for a million dollars.”

Olivia: “Please Papa, say it—which of us is prettier?”

Milton: “I already told you—I won’t answer that question.”

Olivia: “Please Papa, please Papa, please, please, please. I need you to answer the question just this once. Which of us is prettier—JuJu or me?”

This dialogue goes on for a while. Milton is hanging tough. But Olivia is utterly relentless. And after a ferocious barrage of “I need you”s and “just this once”s and “please, Papa, please”s, Milton, fool that he is, finally capitulates. “Well, I guess I’d have to say JuJu, because she’s my wife.”

Olivia’s face is a study in shocked disbelief. “JuJu?” she squeals. “JuJu you picked? How could you do that?”

Milton explains once again. “Because JuJu’s my wife.”

“Okay, okay, okay,” says an outraged O, “JuJu’s your wife. But I”—and here she speaks in the stentorian tones of God addressing Moses—“I am your granddaughter.”

On and off for the next twelve hours Olivia complains about Milton’s response, commanding and begging him to reconsider and calling upon her mother and father and even upon me to declare him some version of mentally incompetent. I see a family resemblance here: When my mother entered a beauty contest in high school, she came in second and promptly demanded a recount. As a result, the caption under her high-school yearbook read, “Ruth Ehrenkranz, most conceited girl in the class.” This is another discussion that I’ll be having with Olivia when she is older.

One weekend in early July the New York contingent—Marya, Nick, Nathaniel, and Benjamin—bravely drove down to D.C. for their summer visit, increasing to eleven the number of relatives stuffed into our bulging house. There are rituals to be followed whenever our sons and their families return to the old homestead: Making room in our driveway for their automobiles. Selecting suitable grown-up and kid DVDs. Meeting their eating requirements—Atkins for this one, vegetarian for that one, whole milk, two percent, one percent, fat-free. And checking out the family photos hanging on the walls of our second-floor hall to make sure that there is equal representation. Aren’t our sons too old to be counting up photographs and complaining, “There’s two more pictures of Tony than of me?” It seems they are not.

While Isaac and Benjamin warily eyed each other, O and Nathaniel bonded instantly, shouting and laughing and racing each other up and down the stairs, shining flashlights into each other’s faces, swimming together, bathing together, showering together, and—with some assistance from Isaac and Benjamin—together transforming my still somewhat orderly office into a wall-to-wall full-service playroom. “What’s all that stuff?” they asked about the hectic collection of drawings, photos, and messages I’ve tacked to the bulletin board behind my desk. I skipped past “For peace of mind, resign as general manager of the universe,” and read them another favorite, a picture postcard from a far-off friend: “The last time I saw you, besides that memorable fall day when we all marched on the Justice Department and shouted, ‘Stop the war!’ to whoever was listening, was in the Giant on Wisconsin Avenue. You were pulling two loaded grocery carts and three boys.”

The children of two of these now-grown-up boys, having finally finished working over my office, moved on to Milton’s, where they swarmed all over the room and persuaded their papa to quit the computer and come play. Not that it was so hard to persuade him to play. For Milton, having grown up as an only child, had always longed for brothers and sisters. His sons, in a sense, had helped to meet that need, providing him later in life with built-in buddies to horse around with, go canoeing with, camp with, ski with, play Sunday-morning softball with, and discuss in minute-by-minute detail every triumph and every tragedy of the Redskins with. As the grandchildren started arriving, Milton looked forward to grooming them for similar roles, delighted he had so many of them to groom. Indeed, on the grounds of the more grandchildren the merrier, he offered—after our sons and their wives declared themselves holding the line at two kids apiece—a bonus payment for a seventh grandchild. We learned of the impending addition of Toby to our clan when Marla and Alexander came over to see us one day, announcing that they were there for the bonus payment. Milton, proud as could be of the success of his plan to increase the Viorst population, was thrilled to pay up.

And now he was thrilled to be hanging out with four of his seven grandchildren—Isaac and Benjamin, Nathaniel and O. Lying down on his rug with his knees drawn up and his hands holding on to a giggling Nathaniel, whose belly was shakily balanced on Milton’s knees, and assuring the other kids that yes, if they’d please wait a minute—please!—they’d each get a turn, my husband gave me a look that said as plainly as any words: “This is exactly what it’s all about.”

I agreed. Which didn’t mean that either of us was anything less than eager for their bedtime.

Because the bodies exceeded the beds, we spread sleeping bags on the third floor, embedding each body in its proper location. But during the course of the night many ups and downs, ins and outs, and rearrangements occurred. Alexander, for instance, discovered that sometime after midnight Isaac and O had both joined Marla in bed while he, Alexander, was now dispossessed and lying on the floor, zipped cozily into a red-checked, fuzzy-pawed, absolutely adorable puppy-dog sleeping bag.

A good time, though little sleep, was had by all.

Well, except for poor Nathaniel, who, the next day, skipped breakfast and wound up in the ER, where he and his dependably calm and patient mother, Marya, and I spent a good three hours making sure that his stomach pains were nothing serious. Sitting in the waiting room, I remembered earlier times, too many to count, when Nathaniel’s dad and his uncles were rushed to the hospital, rushed there for broken wrists, smashed noses, knocked-out teeth, heavy bleeding, falls on the head, and—at one devilish brother’s suggestion to his younger brother—the drinking of turpentine.

I have many tender memories of my long-ago days as the mother of small boys. Our visits to the emergency rooms of Washington, D.C., are not among them.

To celebrate Nathaniel’s escape from appendicitis and other major ills, and also to reward him for courageously enduring pokes, prods, and needles, we drove straight from the hospital to the toy store. There we bought him a special gift and some lesser gifts for all of the other children, returning him home with a smile on his face and ready for the wild rumpus to resume.

Later that day Nathaniel, who has been working on his manners, was asked by his parents to demonstrate his new mannerliness.

Nick: “What do you say when you get a present you like?”

Nathaniel: “Thank you.”

Marya: “And what do you say when you get a present you don’t like?”

Nathaniel: “Thank you.”

Nick: “And what do you say when you get a present you really, really hate?”

Nathaniel: “Thank you.”

Marya: “And later you can come and discuss it with me.”

A round of cheers and applause was offered by all.

Before the visit was over I imprinted the older grandchildren with glittery, wash-offable tattoos, the sticking on of which has lately become another Viorst family ritual. These silver tattoos, in the shape of diamonds or spirals or hearts or stars, are actually, if you must know, my tattoos, which I sometimes wear on my upper right arm as a way of informing the world that I’M STILL HERE. But my grandchildren, as they’ve grown older, have come to admire them and to covet them, reminding me that it’s not nice not to share. And so on Sunday morning O and Nathaniel arrived in my bedroom, made their selection, lifted an arm in the air, and waited while their grandma peeled off the paper, pressed down the picture, and tattooed them.

When the New Yorkers departed I thought of the folk tale of the peasant who bitterly complained that his hut was too small. He was told to bring in his chickens, his goat, and his pig. He lived with these animals for a while, then put them back outside, and suddenly found that his hut was plenty big. In this same spirit I found, when Marya, Nick, Nathaniel, and Benjamin went home (and we love them, we miss them, we want them back, we do!) that our house, reduced to merely seven inhabitants, had all of a sudden become palatial.

I intend, when O is older and complains about this or that, to discuss the concept of “as compared to what?”

There are many discussions I’m planning to have with Olivia and her brothers and her cousins. There are many messages that I wish to impart. There are also skills and planets and poems I’m intending to introduce them to. And there are, as well, excursions and adventures I’m hoping that we can engage in together, shared pleasures I hope that in later life they’ll recall.

Indeed, I think a great deal—maybe more than I ought to—of how I would like my grandchildren to remember me. But if it’s considered legitimate for presidents to care about their legacies, why can’t a grandma?

I’m working on my legacies right now.

And right now my legacy with cherubic Isaac, our resident almost-two-year-old, is lessons in pillow fights and Follow the Leader, a game that includes the puffing of cheeks as well as the tapping of heads, the rubbing of bellies, the pinching of noses and chins, the waggling of ears, the sticking out of tongues, and the twirling around and around and around till the game finally ends in falling down or giggles. He’s sensational at giggles and he shrieks with delight as he chugs around the house, looking for food, for trouble, and for fun. And a recent report from day care, after a day during which he was feeling none too well, nonetheless said that “Isaac tries hard to be happy.” Still my heart aches a bit for sweet Isaac because Toby’s birth was only seventeen months after his, and because he wants more from his mommy than his mommy, or daddy, or any of us can offer him. Indeed, the other morning, when everybody’s attention seemed to be focused on Toby, Isaac silently watched from the sidelines and then announced, just in case we hadn’t noticed, “Isaac a baby.”

I’d like, as part of my Isaac legacy, to help him have his chance to still be a baby.

Toby, at the moment, is the easiest of the three children, though sleep doesn’t seem to be part of his CV, asking no more of life than to be fed, changed, cuddled, tickled, bounced, and talked to, and inviting us to respond in kind to his exuberant production of chortles and coos. Unaware, as yet, of competitive feelings toward and from his brother and sister, Toby smiles indiscriminately on all, while Isaac lifts up his arms to be held and Olivia complains, “When are these guys gonna learn to do things for themselves?”

Maybe my first legacy for Toby will be teaching him to do a few things for himself.

As for our Olivia, Milton has taught her to kneel, hold her arms out straight, and dive (head not belly first) neatly into a pool, his patient instruction providing her with a well-earned source of pride and a lifelong skill. My legacies for Olivia? I seem to be aspiring to a lot of them, but before she moves out I’d like to teach her ten poems, ten poems I’ll try (as I tried and failed with my children) to persuade her to learn in exchange…for payments in cash. (I know this sounds crass, but I’m trying it anyway.) Since O is a child who has memorized vast portions of The Incredibles, Shrek, and The Lion King, I figure that she can do the same with verse, inspired by her grandmother’s enthusiasm as well as by a dollar for every poem learned.

My fantasy is that someday she’ll be stuck in traffic on the New Jersey Turnpike and instead of cursing her fate she’ll recite a few poems, and maybe she’ll think of her grandma who tucked these words into her soul when she was a child. On the other hand, if she’s stuck in traffic cursing her fate instead of reciting poetry, I’m hoping she doesn’t remember that her grandmother taught her a few of those curse words too. (Not on purpose, of course. Certainly not! “Oh, shit” isn’t part of my intended legacy.)

Now we know what can happen to language when children dutifully learn words by heart without a full grasp of what it is they’re saying. My current favorite malapropism is Nathaniel’s rendition of the Pledge of Allegiance, which he recites with great precision right until he hits “one nation, under guard.” (Though now that I’m thinking about it, maybe it’s not a malapropism at all.)

I’m planning to teach Olivia to understand a poem’s sense as well as its sound, even when the sense is sort of silly, which is why I’m starting with Lear’s delicious ode to intermarriage, “The Owl and the Pussy-Cat.” I’ll have to explain about “five-pound notes” and “shillings” and “mince” and “quince,” as well as “bong-trees.” And we’ll both have to learn the meaning of “runcible spoon.” But I hope that O will be tickled when “Pussy, my love” gets married to “Owl,” that “elegant fowl,” and the two of them dance “hand in hand…by the light of the moon.” And I hope that I can persuade this tenacious, relentless, world-class negotiator that, although—yes, she’s right—this poem has three verses indeed, I intend to pay her ONE dollar to learn it, not three.

O has more time to learn poetry over the weekend, when camp is out and when she, and all the rest of us, are at home, four grown-ups in charge of keeping three children happily occupied for two days and three evenings. The challenge here is to not succumb to entertaining the kids with too many sugary treats and DVDs, and every weekend we flunk this test once again. This is not a failure to play countless games or to color countless pages of coloring books or to spend countless hours at swimming pools and playgrounds or to countlessly read yet another Sendak or Seuss. Nor is this a failure to arrange for compatible play dates and jolly outings. The problem, instead, is that while Alexander will go for a ride on his bike on Saturday morning, tugging Isaac behind in his two-wheeled buggy; and while Marla, off in another direction, will go for a long sweaty run, pushing Toby ahead of her in his red jogger; and while Milton and I will summon all our energy and inventiveness to make certain that O is diverted while they are gone, when everyone’s done with their biking and running and back at the house again, it still is only ten o’clock in the morning.

We of a certain age agree that time goes by faster and faster as we grow older. One of the few exceptions is spending Friday night to Sunday night with the grandchildren.

One Friday in late July, Alexander and Marla packed the children into the car and drove down to Rehoboth Beach for the weekend. Milton and I, with the house to ourselves, seemed hardly to know what to do, but when we had locked all the doors and turned the security system to “on” and got into bed, we figured it out. On Saturday I spent a few hours restoring our kitchen to its former orderliness. On Sunday morning we read the Post and the Times not to “Elmo’s Song,” but to J. S. Bach. Nothing was spilled in the course of our lunch and no sippy cups graced our table. And when I went upstairs to take a shower and shampoo my hair, I was the only person in the bathroom.

Arriving on Sunday night from the beach, Isaac beamed us a thoroughly happy “hi-yo.” Toby dispensed a gurgle and a coo. Alexander and Marla pronounced the weekend a great success. And Olivia, who, along with the others, headed into the kitchen for a snack, instantly started recounting her adventures in Rehoboth at a pace somewhat faster than the speed of light.

“We saw jellyfishes. Yuck! And we saw dolphins in the ocean. Twelve of them! Awesome! And I rode on rides. And I won a frog. And built sandcastles in the sand. And I held my breath and jumped in big waves with my daddy.”

Sitting at the table of my already ravaged kitchen with Toby, now in my arms, spitting up on my dress, I smiled at my sandy family and said that the weekend sounded like fun and that I was happy they’d had such a wonderful time. And then I added, surprised to find myself swept with an unexpected rush of emotion, “But Papa and I are so glad you’re all back. We missed you.”