Some suggest Gaga has reached that viewing age already. Not that I would dare to suggest such 'nonsense'.
In fact, Ellie raised the question yesterday. She inquired whether we had a 'bucket list' of things to do. We were impressed with her knowledge of the phrase for at one time, we thought she was asking for a bucket. She went further saying that old people should have a list before they die. She does not fool around, getting to the point, directly. We countered that we do have a bucket list for before we 'kick the bucket'. Interesting what conversations one can have with an eight-year old. Wonderful, sometimes amusing, often interesting but always providing an honest assessment of what is transpiring in their little heads.
Young Benny went off to soccer so we took Ellie to the park for a little warm-up gymnastics, (the weather was so hot that the warm-up was superfluous), popped into the store for an icicle (snacks were verboten by...guess who?), lost 4 games in a row to Ellie playing "Uno", swam for an hour in which she performed and therefore, entertained us. It's fascinating how uninhibited the two kids are. This was followed by one of our favorite requests from the kids, "Please can you bath me?" They pronounce 'bath' the South African way and on occasion might instruct us to 'go put on your cozies', bathing suits, before swimming. Of course, there is no element of manipulation in any of this because, after all, we are the adults.
Furthermore, grandkids are also the kids of the parents (our children) who ideally get back from them what they gave or took from us. At its basest, it's the ultimate revenge. Sounds rather nasty but perhaps... We still love a concept that when implemented, will be the finest idea ever introduced into the world. It's called generation skipping. And what it means is when a couple marry, instead of having kids, they should have grandkids immediately. As you might gather, the concept is wonderful, the mechanics are proving to be somewhat difficult.
A few videos below show the intelligent, growth providing moments and interaction between the parties while taking a break from the world's greatest conspiracy, the one between grandparents and grandchildren on the one side and the parents on the other side or better yet, in the middle.
Click on 3 videos below if you have the patience:
Ellie entertains her fan base...
"Can we redo it, Gaga-papa?"
Action in the pool...
Cheers,
Jenni and Jeffrey
