Saturday, January 30, 2010

Grandma the ridiculous superhero


Our grandsons spent last weekend with us. They are 10 and 8 (soon to be 9) and, lately, have had rather full plates - especially for guys that are so young. Their lives right now are full of uncertainty and a little bit of fear and a lot of worry  - worry about adult things and things they can't fix. It kills me! I see the sadness in their eyes and I want to kiss it away - but, they want none of that - after all, they are getting too big for those physical acts of affection. 

So, my goal was to work around all of that anxiety and to just make them laugh and to be silly. They have great imaginations. They are almost like twins that have shared the same space in their mother's womb - at times, it is almost surreal. They finish each other's sentences and one will finish a story the other has started. They are a unit - solid and sure!

Over breakfast of "make a smile" pancakes at I-Hop, they started telling us the story they want to write - all about their family and good and evil. They kept bouncing back and forth with the story line and, actually, it was really good. I just assumed the story would include a superhero. After all, they always do. So, I said, "Ah Ha, a superhero - I can get into this". So, I went on to explain that I wanted to be in their story - as a sassy, flamin' red-haired, red-cape, red cowboy-boot wearin' - superhero. A superhero with ATTITUDE." I can just see it - it would be so cool. And, I went on to explain how my superhero power would be that when evil came after us, I would stare it down and fill its head with love and then it wouldn't be able to harm us - everything would be wonderful.  My comment was met with four eyes that looked at me with unbelief (there may have been six eyes; however, I couldn't see Joe's because he was sitting next to me). I don't think they heard about my incredible power - they were just doing their best to erase that image of their grandma with flamin' red hair, wearing a red cape and red cowboy boots from their young, impressionable minds. Gee, for boys with imagination, they certainly were not in my moment.

The real kicker of the story is that they finally (by the end of the day) determined I would be some kind of kook "electric" girl that couldn't contain her powers and, instead of using my powers for good (even thought I tried), I would end up channeling my powers back on myself and would fry my own brains and short-circuit myself. Boy, do they know how to make me feel good about myself.

But, for a moment - if only a short while - I succeeded. I encouraged them to laugh and forget the things troubling them and just let them enjoy being little boys teasing their grandma.  

I hope they remember that being ridiculous is sometimes pretty fun, that belly laughs always make you feel better and that their grandma loves them enough to put frightening images of herself wearing a red cape and cowboy boots into their little heads. But, more importantly, I hope they ALWAYS KNOW how very much they are loved!

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