Do You Want To Play?

Last week my adventure involved recapturing that sense of play we often lose as we age. I didn’t go skydiving or take a belly dancing class, or any of the other prescribed, clichéd activities meant to stimulate aging baby boomers. Something else to check off our bucket lists as if these activities were cardiac paddles meant to jump start our hearts and keep us alive. Instead I spent a week with my three-year old grandson, Dylan, while my daughter recovered from a C-section.

From the minute I walked into the house, and Dylan said, “Nana, come play spooky forest,” I felt my mind engage and my spirits lift. He’d remembered spooky forest—the story I created the last time I visited him on Christmas day.

Let the games begin, I chuckled to myself, as I hustled up the stairs to his bedroom and the vast train table, complete with trains, tracks, people, cars, trees, heliport, bridge, and buildings. All the necessary elements for a walk through the spooky forest where the ghost, always played by Dylan, scares the lady, always played by me.

By mid-week Dylan, who was housebound with a cold and dealing with a new baby sister, needed to run off some energy, so I created another game—socks in the belly—designed just for him. A pair of his rolled up socks stuck under his shirt accompanied by the chant, “socks in the belly,” sent Dylan running through the house laughing and saying, “Nana, chase me.” Totally, ridiculously silly. But oh, so much fun.

Toward the end of my adventuresome week, Dylan performed his no-no dance for me prompted by my daughter. Dylan ran from his bedroom onto the upstairs loft area in full view of the master bedroom where we sat, shouting “no, no, no, no,” and dancing in a circle. My daughter and I applauded his performance.

But I felt there was something missing. So I took Dylan into his bedroom and showed him how to bow. In typical three-year-old fashion, his bow was a little too deep, but very dramatic as if he’d just sung the lead in an opera. His blond hair falling forward, his toddler body slightly off balance. But he got the idea.

The next no-no dance ended with a dramatic bow. My daughter laughed, the new baby stirred in her bassinette and the afternoon slowly wound down. I left the next day feeling exhausted and exhilarated.

So why is play so important to me as a grandmother? Probably because of my experiences with my grandmothers. My paternal grandmother, who I saw on a regular basis, was a lovely woman who ladled ice cream out as if it was mashed potatoes and we were the troops. She had a lot of grandchildren and I always felt like I was just another one of them.

My maternal grandmother I hardly ever saw because of distance. But as a child, we exchanged letters and she made me feel special. In one of my letters to her I shared my desire to have a monkey as a pet. (Hey, I was ten-years-old.) She wrote back that she thought it was a great idea. I’m sure she didn’t really think that, but she’d stepped into my ten-year-old world where monkeys could be pets and live in tiny suburban track houses. She was my creative grandmother who wrote poetry and could sew anything without a pattern from a sofa slipcover to a canvas awning. Later when I became a writer, I often thought of her. How her creativity was as essential to her as breathing.

So what do you want your grandchildren to remember about you? I want mine to remember that I was the grandmother who told a good story and knew how to play.