Grandparenting summer

It’s been a good summer, enriched by some immersion grandparenting.

That included two short experiments that together represented a big step forward in our grandparenting practice. Twice over the summer, the grandkids stayed with us for two nights, without their parents. And it worked out well. On each occasion, there was one night when Elliott woke up and demanded attention, but not for too long either time. On the other night of each stay, both kids slept right through. 

The time will come when they can stay with us for a longer period, giving their parents a break and, who knows, maybe even allowing us to take them on holiday somewhere. Perhaps to France. They both hold French nationality and, in a statement of surprising understanding, Matilda has let us know she wants to be better acquainted with the country and its language. When Danielle and I first met, it was French that we spoke to each other, and occasionally we fall into it again.

“Why are you speaking French?” Matilda often challenges us if she hears it.

It impresses me that she even recognises the language. And I can’t help feeling that behind her comment lies the implication, “I don’t want to be left out, I want to understand”. We’ll have to see what we can do when she’s a little older.

Matilda on her pedal bike
You think she doesn’t look happy? She wasn’t.
Her words after I took this picture were, “I don’t want photos.”

The big thing this summer has been the bikes. As I explained before, Matilda received her first pedal bike for her birthday in August. It’s quite clear that using a balance bike, the kind that has kids pushing themselves along with their feet on the ground, teaches them how to cycle much more effectively than using a pedal bike with training wheels. That was certainly clear when I saw her last week, at her home in Hoyo de Manzanares, near Madrid. She’s mastered both getting started (while with us, she still needed a push) and stopping (she now uses a brake and gets her feet on the ground, instead of falling over pretty much every time she came to a halt). And, boy, does she get some speed up in between.

Matilda running on the rocks outside her school

“Me too, me too,” says Elliott

The real problem is that Elliott, who has always wanted to do anything that Matilda could do, at the same time as she learned to do it – walking, running, talking – naturally wants to use a pedal bike too, even though he isn’t quite two and a half years old yet. His dad bought one for him, but he bought it from someone near us in Valencia, and it’s at our place until we find a way of getting it to him. In the meantime, Elliott has to beg his sister for some time to use her bike. When he does get to use it, he’s quite remarkable – I timed him keeping going for ten or fifteen minutes. That may be partly because he hasn’t yet fully mastered stopping, but it’s still remarkable.

Matilda’s pedal bike
“Me too, me too,” says Elliott

Language is the other area where the kids have bowled me over. Their mastery of Spanish can only leave me consumed by envy. But their English also just gets better and better, not just in the words but in the thinking behind them. 

“I like coming to Valencia,” Matilda told me.

I felt quite flattered, a feeling that lasted only until she could finish her remark.

“Because,” she went on, “we get ice cream every day here.”

There was ice cream on only one occasion last week, when I was with them. That’s ‘parents’ rules’. Sheena, my daughter-in-law, tells me that she regards us as applying ‘grandparents’ rules’. The latter are seriously more grandchild indulgent (and possibly grandparent-peace-purchasing).

The other enjoyable thing about being in our place is that they get to see trains going by from time to time. They call each one they see a ‘chu-chu-bahnele’, which is the equivalent in Danielle’s mother tongue, Alsatian, of what we might call a choo-choo-train. 

For the avoidance of confusion, Alsatian in this context has nothing to do with a breed of dogs, and everything to do with the language spoken in Danielle’s birth region of Alsace, in Eastern France.

Why do I find the use of Alsatian so enjoyable? Because it was what Danielle used when pointing out trains to our kids, when they were of that age. And she used it with our friends’ kids too. 

Now Elliott will cry out “chu-chu-bahnele” whenever we see so much as the railway track (well, strictly speaking it’s a metro track, but it feels like a railway since it’s all above ground near where we live. He doesn’t make the distinction, so nor do we). 

As it happens, with him the fascination seems to be just part of a general interest in alternative means of travel to cars.

“Plane! Plane!” he’ll say whenever he sees or hears one passing overhead.

They’re both beginning to grasp some of the subtler distinctions of language. For instance, they never want anything. They always need it. After all, a want can be denied. But a need? Well, it just has to be satisfied, doesn’t it? 

That slippage between terms, by the way, is by no means limited to children.

Chupa chups, as they call them, or lollipops as I would, are the object of one of those needs. Fulfilled, it creates considerable delight. It was, on one occasion, even under parents’ rules, in Hoyo, while I was there. 

Chupa chup moment, with Michael-Michael
After Edward Hopper

The event gave me the opportunity to take a photo of them in pensive enjoyment of their Chupa chup moment, along with a highly welcome visitor, their Uncle Michael. Or Michael-Michael, as they continue to call him. The moment with him and their chupa-chups gave me the opportunity to take a photo I felt had a bit of the wistful, enigmatic mood of an Edward Hopper painting to it.

The moment also has rarity value. A visit by Michael-Michael is received with such unconfined joy that, as a rule, we would certainly not apply words like peaceful to the scene that ensues.

High delight - literally, too - when Michael-Michael visits

And there were other special moments for the kids in the course of the summer. Their Granny flew down to join us from her home in Belfast, in Northern Ireland.

Matilda enjoying her granny’s presence

It was with their granny that they got to satisfy yet another need, the well-known requirement of the human soul to bathe from time to time in foam. A fine way to spend a little time on a hot summer day. As Granny can testify.

Matilda revelling in the foam

Granny can testify to the enjoyment

The heat, of course, was one of the major aspects of the summer, with global warming seeming to go right on in its inexorable way. That, I’m sure, was one of the things that made the foam so welcome, just like the swimming pool and the sea. And the pleasure the kids took in all three made it all the more bearable for us too.

A fine summer, as I said, despite the heat. The kind that leaves lots of great memories. All of which makes for what we’d call a good time all round, doesn’t it?

A rare moment of peace in an action-packed summer