Sometime back I had the wonderful opportunity to baby-sit my little Los Angeles grand-daughters. I don't get to do it often because I live 60 miles away, but sometimes when their folks take a weekend away, I get to stay with them, which I consider great fun. The only part I don't enjoy is trying to figure out how to make all their electronic equipment work.
The TV downstairs has about 12 functions connected to it, with many "clickers" involved and sometimes it just gets out of sync and I'm not able to get the regular broadcast channels on it. Actually, it happens almost every time I lay my hand on it, so I am always resigned to doing without any news for however long I am stay.
On this particular evening it happened again about 7 o’clock, so I thought it might be fun for the three of us girls - me, Olivia 5 and Justine 4 - to get in our Jammies and watch the low-tech TV in their parents' bedroom, lolling on their high four-poster bed. The girls ran to get into their jammies and I got my new summer PJs out of the suitcase. They are a two-piece seersucker outfit, a pair of shorts and a sleeveless top.
Just as I was pulling off my Capri pants in preparation for putting on the PJ bottoms, Olivia came into the room. She stopped dead in her tracks and said, "Grandma, you have old legs!"
I could hardly keep a straight face when she said that, but trying not to grin I said, "You are certainly right, Olivia. I am an old lady and my legs are old too."
She thought about that a minute and asked, "Well, how old are you." I told her I was 71. Her next question was, "Well, when are you going to die?" I was getting such a kick out of this "out of the mouths of babes" kind of conversation, but I told her that people don't know when they are going to die, that some people die when they are young and others when they are old and I didn't know when it would happen to me.
That seemed to satisfy her, and she jumped up on the bed and plumped up the pillow she had chosen for herself. Although I never intended to take off my T-shirt and bra in front of her, that very act gained new significance because if she thought my legs looked old, what would she have said if she had seen my bazooms! Believe me, I really didn't want to know!
1 comment:
That is a "cute" story. I definitely got a chuckle out of it. "out of the mouths of babes"...that is my favorite part of my job...the things kids have to say!
I have one particular story that sticks out me. Back when I was living in Oregon, I had a little girl (she was 18 months) in my daycare. She was a very smart little girl (her mom and all her aunts and uncles had scored genius on the IQ tests). Needless to say one day I told her to "Hold her horses" and the response that I got from her was, "I can't hold my horses because he is at home and he is pretending to be a pig!!". She of course was talking about a stuffed animal that she had at home. I LOVE kids!!!!
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