This last week we had the pleasure of a visit from the only great grandchildren in the family. They live in Rockville, Md., and their grandparents have visited them almost monthly, but I saw them last year for the first time, on their first visit here. I have made do with pictures and computer images up to that visit, which was brief and busy. This time, the visit was longer and less structured, so MiMi (that’s me) got some time with them.
They are charming children – an 8-year-old girl and two boys, ages 6 and 3. All are smart, active, socially adept and a pleasure to be around. Their parents are attorneys, but their mother took child-rearing seriously and has been at home with them – and out with them in all the schedules that children have these days.
They greeted me as if they remembered me from last year. I think the little girl did really; the others are a tribute to their mother’s preparation. I watched her with them. They are lucky children to have such a mother. She really enjoys her role and the results of her loving discipline are visible.
I played Monopoly with Lindsey and Sam, the two older children. They were both better than I was. I claim the long layoff – the last time I played was probably 60 years ago and Monopoly is not like riding a bicycle, it doesn’t come back so easily.
When we were at the table, I realized that there were four generations sitting there – the first time since my mother died in 1993. It felt good, and even at the table they were enjoyable to be around.
They had all been to Keeneland and the children’s museum earlier. They showed no sign of tiring – not so their grandparents or their great grandmother. But I had led an hour of study group on a subject I wasn’t so good at earlier and I had an unintended nap afterwards.
Sometimes I go by what my horoscope suggests. One said I was full of energy and I should get things done (wrong) and the other one suggested that I take it easy today. It is probably a good thing to read both of them and obey the one which suits you. I get two by computer and one by newspaper. Sometimes all three are wrong. The only time the stars don’t let me down is in the description of the Virgo personality. That fits me to a tee, no matter which one I read. If the description is so accurate, how come the daily suggestion is so wrong?
My life is very busy and I like it that way, but it really requires a lot of energy to keep it that way. My friend Lowell who takes me every Saturday to a study group at Temple asked me if I’d like to go to a luncheon lecture on Tuesdays and said he’d call me. I told him that Tuesday is the only day I have nothing I must do but it sounds pretty interesting. If it is every Tuesday, probably I won’t go – but if it’s just once a month, probably I will.
Nothing gets a nonagenarian moving like an offer to be taken somewhere. And nothing gets this nonagenerian’s interest like a new learning experience to keep the brain cells in action. I’m probably fighting off the inevitable, but as long as I’m the oldest generation, I intend to keep fighting.
However, my son David said, as he brought me home last night, “I understand why only young people should have children.”