Immersion grandparenting

Hammocks are fun, says Matilda

Since the grandkids are with us again, with their parents in tow, it struck me that I’d better get a move on with telling the story from back in February, of their most recent previous visit, when the parents weren’t in tow. Well, they were in tow enough to have one of them bring the kids to us and another pick them up four days later. That gave them (the parents) the chance to have a well-deserved weekend break together for the first time for, oh, centuries. In between we had the kids on our own.

That’s ‘immersion grandparenting’. With them alone, keeping them amused, out of trouble and away from danger, is down to us with no one to take over if (sorry, when) we get tired. It’s grandparenting without a net. Much the most exciting, if not a little exhausting, kind.

The kids are fine with us on their own these days. Matilda did mention on a couple of occasions that she’d like Mummy to give her a cuddle before she went to sleep, but it was without any real sorrow and she shed no tears – it felt rather like a formal protest as though to say that she wanted it on record that she missed her parents and, though she could cope with grandparental care for a short while, we weren’t to believe that she saw this as any kind of long-term arrangement.

When it came to entertaining them, my thanks are due to Matilda who came up with an excellent suggestion. There was a film she wanted to watch. Slightly thrown by her idiosyncratic pronunciation of the first syllable of the title, I spent some fruitless time looking for ‘Papa Troll’ which, you’ve got to admit, doesn’t sound like an impossible title for a kids’ film. It turns out that what she wanted was the second Paw Patrol film. To be honest, I wasn’t aware that there’d been a first film but, hey, you learn a lot from being with grandkids.

The price of the film was, I felt, reasonable. It was around eight euros. But the excellence of the economics only became fully apparent once we realised how often the kids could watch it. The price per child per viewing worked out at around ten cents, which is unbeatable value. And, when they finally decided they’d had enough of it, I’m glad to say I found Paw Patrol 1, at an even lower price, and again providing hours of entertainment.

Beach fun in February, with Elliott (l) and Matilda

Apart from the films, there’s one aspect to being with us in Valencia that the kids continue to perceive as outstandingly advantageous. I mean, apart from playing on the beach in February. That’s ice cream every day. At home, ice cream’s a luxury, available only on rare special occasions. So having ice cream every day is a kind of anticipated preview of heaven. 

There's playground fun to be had at the beach too

Also in Valencia, while the kids do have their own bikes, the alternative is to travel on kids’ seats on ours. This is a great source of pleasure. Since kids like rituals, there are of course traditions associated with these bike rides. For instance, on one occasion I was out with Elliott on the back of my bike, and we’d been gone some ten minutes when he suddenly piped up from the back, ‘why no bumpity-bump?’ 

Bumpity-bump is what we do when we go over what the English, in their cruel way, refer to as sleeping policemen, though technically I think they’re called traffic-calming measures. You know, those bumps in the road that are designed to slow motorists. I call out ‘bumpity’ as we hit one on a bike, and ‘bump’ when we come off the other side. He echoes the calls. Matilda does the same, I might add, whether on my bike or Danielle’s.

Well, on that occasion I’d gone ten minutes and crossed several bumps but without any bumpity-bumps. Elliott was, rightly, reminding me of the ritual which I had, quite honestly, forgotten. I remembered it for the rest of the ride. 

Making their own entertainment:
Elliott housecleaning, Matilda mastering colouring

Talking about Elliott, and specifically about Elliott talking, it’s time for me to admit that there are those in my family who rather question my prediction that he would be a strong silent type. It’s true that his sometimes-unquenchable loquacity might be seen as undermining my sense of his quietness. No one, mind you, questions his strength: seldom have I seen a kid who’ll pick himself up from pretty much any fall with so little apparent concern or spilling of tears. His sister’s pretty tough too, treating her own injuries – and of the two grandkids she’s the only one to have broken a bone or suffered a burn – with philosophical courage once the first shock has passed. But his resilience even at the time of the accident is remarkable. This suggests that Elliott’s as strong as I maintain, and his general willingness to take pain without complaint might even seem to prove my belief that he’s strong and silent, were it not that he has developed a readiness (how shall I put this) to be outspoken on other occasions and matters. A readiness he exercises frequently and at length.

Interestingly, his handling of language has apparently reached a new stage. He’s decided he doesn’t like qualifiers. ‘Lovely Elliott’, as Danielle inadvertently described him on one occasion, received the response ‘just Elliott’. He had no time for the expression ‘fresh orange juice’ either, insisting that what he was about to drink was simply ‘orange juice’. I’d be inclined to say that he had an admirable commitment to concision, if I didn’t expect him to correct that to ‘just commitment to concision’. 

While he’s become good at expressing himself, he hasn’t developed quite the same level of attachment to the process of listening. Or at any rate listening and obeying. It was biking that brought that out again, in a dramatic fashion. Danielle and I were about to take them out on our bikes, much to their delight – they like the bike seats and enjoying going ‘bumpity-bump’ on them to one or other playground (we’re becoming experts on the respective advantages and disadvantages of all the playgrounds anywhere near us, and quite a few that aren’t). Our brand of bike has a design flaw, which is that it has a built-in lock but, if we set the lock with a pedal next to the kickstand, it becomes impossible to unlock. I won’t bore you with the technical details, but I had to lock my bike and then unlock it again before we set out. As I was getting everything done, Elliott came trotting over, making a beeline for a pedal.

‘Don’t move the pedal!’ I cautioned him.

He looked up, smiled, and moved the pedal. That lined it up neatly with the kickstand just as the bike emitted the ominous clicking sound which told me it was now locked. And that was the end of our projected excursion, since I could no longer unlock the bike. Indeed, it took me three weeks, including emails to the support service of the company that built the bikes. That’s not as straightforward as it one was, since the company has gone broke and been bought up by another. Eventually, a helpful person in the service kindly told me the (actually quite simple) solution to the problem and I could start using my bike again.

To be strictly honest, that’s not the only aspect of Elliott’s behaviour these days that can be – let me put this carefully – a little tiring. You can tell him – ask him, beg him – to do something, or more to the point, not to do something, and he’ll blissfully go on refusing to do what he should or, more to the point, refrain from doing what he shouldn’t. At one point, I got so annoyed that I couldn’t prevent myself making clear to him my displeasure (verbally, I hasten to add, only verbally). 

Actually, to be entirely truthful, that happened more than once.

‘Come on, David,’ Danielle told me, ‘he isn’t three yet. Stop expecting him to behave like an adult.’

I felt like getting a little picky and pointing out that, actually, I knew a lot of adults as impervious to rational requests as Elliott. It’s probably just as well, for my own wellbeing, that I thought better of saying so.

The best response to a burst of annoyance on my part, however, came inevitably from Elliott himself. He’s someone who generally resist any attempt of mine to kiss him (‘I don’t want a kiss,’ he frequently informs me with firmness). On this occasion, however, faced with my obvious irritation, he looked at me wistfully and said:

‘I’d like a kiss.’

How can any anger resist a request so disarming? Mine evaporated. Such is the power, I suppose, of one who’s certainly a strong type but perhaps all the stronger for not being entirely a silent one.

Having fun in Valencia can be exhausting for everyone

The grandparenting chronicles: carnival

Granddad’s glasses! What a joy for Elliott

February saw me back in Hoyo de Manzanares, visiting the grandkids in their home. It was carnival time, which meant cheerful celebrations by the kids in their respective schools. It also meant pressure on Sheena, their mother, to produce outstanding costumes she could feel proud of when she sent the kids to school wearing them.

Pollo Pepe arrives at Elliott’s school

As it happens, in the event, only one child celebrated carnical at school that week. That was Elliott, who went as Pollo Pepe, perhaps better known to English-speaking readers (and children) as Charlie the Chicken, aka Charlie Chick, the creation of one Nick Denchfield. Pollo Pepe is his Hispanic version and he’s gone down big in this country, as was forcefully illustrated by the sheer number of kids in chicken costumes. To be fair, one of the best was the one put together by Sheena. And, in any case, you can’t have too many Pollo Pepes, now can you?

And what about Matilda, I hear you cry? Well, she was disappointed, naturally, at being left out of the festivities on the day when we shepherded them to their respective schools, her in her day-to-day school clothes, him proudly dressed as Pepe. But, fear not: her disappointment was only temporary. She’s a big girl now – why, she’ll be five this summer – and her big school, much bigger than Elliott’s, was pulling out all the stops for carnival. It was going to involve the whole of Hoyo in the celebrations, by having the kids parade through the town, in costume. The weather forecast for the day itself, however, was highly unfavourable, and weather forecasts are often right in Spain as they are far more seldom in Britain (indeed, it chucked it down). So the parade had to be postponed. Only postponed, though, not cancelled.

Matilda got her festivities the following week (which sadly meant I missed them). In a costume at least as wonderful as Sheena prepared for Elliott. Hers was on a woodland theme and it worked beautifully. 

Matilda in her carnival procession

Matilda got a kick out of parading around her village in it, with all her schoolmates.

The kids and their bikes

Bikes, you may remember, are a key factor of the kids’ lives. And these days they just seem to get keyer and keyer. During my February stay, Matilda and Elliott were frequently on bikes on our school runs. That was pretty impressive. And it would have been even more impressive had they entirely mastered the process. The problem is that getting to school is mostly uphill, and mostly pretty steep. 

We, the grandparents, cheat. We have electric bikes. With them you can sit at the bottom of the steepest, longest hill you can imagine, and feel entirely undaunted. You know that you can sail up it, pedalling with minimal effort, as your source of external power takes the strain from your legs.

Now, I discovered that the grandkids cheat too. Well, Elliott especially. To be fair, he’s still not three, which is the manufacturer’s specified minimum age for his bike. So he’s doing extremely well to be riding to school at all. Perhaps it’s not unreasonable that he, too, relies on an external source of power to help get him to the top. Unfortunately for me, however, that external drive is grandad-powered. That brought back to me all the horror of the long, steep slope that I believed I’d put behind me thanks to my electric bike.

The way back down, at the end of the school day, is a lot easier. Matilda handles that just fine. At the time of my visit, however, Elliott still had a little progress to make. He understands how brakes work. He’ll even slow himself with them from time to time. But the use of brakes hasn’t yet become instinctive. So when there was a need to stop quickly, he still tended to rely on scraping his shoes along the ground. That worked, I grant him that. But when holes started to appear in his shoes, the technique lost any appeal it may ever have had for the parents (or the grandfather, come to that).

Children like rituals. Or at any rate habits. One of Elliott’s is to hide each time we get to his house.

Now the notion of ‘hiding’ is still a work in progress for him. He always goes to the same place. Well, I suppose that rather underlines the ritualistic aspect of the exercise. Nor has he entirely grasped the notion of ‘hiding’ as ‘making yourself invisible’. He gets most of himself behind a pillar but then peeks out to make sure that we’re all ready to react appropriately.

This happens when he leaps out with a bit of a shout. Nothing too intimidating. A lion’s roar, but more on the cub scale than that of the king of the Savannah.

As I’m sure you can imagine, I always react with startled shock, throwing up my hands in horror and shouting, ‘so that’s where you were!’. My reward is a beaming smile which never fails to make its appearance.

Nor was cycling the only form of exercise in which the kids indulged while I was there. Nicky, their dad, has returned to rock climbing, a sport to which he was devoted in his teens. Already back then, his devotion excited my admiration, as he cycled half an hour each way through dark, cold streets in the winter, to get to a climbing gym in the south of Strasbourg, where we lived at the time, after a full day’s school and school days are full indeed in France (often he got out only at 6:00). That happened three times a week, a level of commitment I haven’t seen in a great many teenagers.

Daddy back with an old passion

Well, he doesn’t go so often these days. Family man, and all that. And the presidency of the Hoyo chess club also makes its demands on his time. But he goes and sometimes he even takes the kids.

Elliott enjoys himself, but he tends to spend most of his time on a climb which, as his dad rather dismissively but far from inaccurately put it, is a bit like a ladder. The fun thing about it is that you get to the top and then come back down by a slide. You can imagine the attraction, an attraction felt by Matilda too.

She, however, has now graduated to proper climbs. I watched her more than once struggling up one of them, helped on her way by her dad, and felt she wasn’t doing badly. But imagine my astonishment when, a while later, noticing that she wasn’t near me, I went around the corner to where the climb she’d struggled with was located, to find her on it again – and not at the bottom, but right at the top. She’d climbed it on her own and without assistance. 

Matilda reaches the top. Unassisted

Naturally, I fetched Nicky at once while she waited, and when we were together, we saluted her achievement with suitable applause. She seemed pleased. As for us, we were downright impressed.

Especially Granddad. 

And a postscript

Matilda’s very attached to the mug she was given by her friend Eduardo at his third birthday party. So when it came to leaving a cup of milk for Father Christmas’s visit, back in December, and Sheena suggested using that mug, Matilda was a little concerned.

‘Let’s not,’ she said, ‘he might steal it.’

Too precious to risk

Wise girl, I say. Why trust a guy who sneaks into your house at night? A little caution seems fully called for.