Grandchildren

October 24, 2008

When my grandson, Anthony, was four he owned a ten-foot length of rope. Lightweight. The kind often used for clothesline. It was, perhaps, his proudest possession. He used it for everything. Tying a stalled truck to the back ladder of a toy fire engine ... Tying his mother's high-heel pump to the bathroom door knob ... Tying a box of Cheerios to the clothes dryer door. Binding his grandma's arms and legs in order to test her Houdini talents ... Anthony could have taught the fine art of knot tying to Boy Scouts of America long before he started kindergarten.

A rope had many fine uses.

One day, many years ago, I was baby-sitting nine month old granddaughter, Meggie, and Anthony who was going through his knot-tying stage. I was cooking supper. Meggie, balancing her small self in a baby walker, was pushing her feet against the floor, moving fast.and loving every dangerous minute of it. She was fine as long as the wheels remained on the kitchen tiles, but when she rolled onto the living room carpet, the walker flipped over. There I'd be pouring cornbread batter into a hot skillet with her indignant howls erupting all over the place.

After running to her rescue the second time, I decided there must be a better way to deal with this matter. My eyes fell on Anthony's rope. He wasn't exactly gracious about lending it to me, but he couldn't resist the details of my plan. We would tie one end of the rope to Meggie's walker and the other end to the water pipes beneath the kitchen sink. My grandson arranged both knots according to my specifications ...

Ahhh ... Now, we had some control over Miss Busy Britches. She had enough slack to make it from one end of the kitchen to the other, but not enough to reach the carpet.

I turned back to my cornbread.

When Carmen came in from work, Anthony was waiting at the door.

"Guess what," he yelled loud enough for all the neighbors to hear,
"Grandma Jo's got Megan tied under the sink!"

Carmen grew a little pale during her dash from front door to kitchen. Anxiously, her eyes sized up the situation. Rope emerging from the slightly open cabinet door stretched to a baby walker which was holding one small prisoner. The prisoner, at that moment, was happily smearing peanut butter into her red hair with one hand and onto the refrigerator door with the other.

Supper was ready. Meggie was transferred to her highchair. Anthony reclaimed his rope. The experiment was over. Never to be mentioned again.

In my dreams!

It became one of my grown-up children's funniest one liners ...
"Remember when Mama tied little Megan under the kitchen sink".
Funny to them, it was. Not to me.

I'd be innocently shopping with my daughters ... surrounded by decent law-abiding motherly women, when Karen would fit the sentence into a clearly audible, conversation. "Honey Gail, do you remember when Mama tied little Megan under the kitchen sink?"

Several pairs of shocked accusing eyes would turn my way.

Or ... we'd be in public ... Patti, telling some sad tale in which she had suffered at her mama's hands ... Carmen asking, in a voice loud enough to carry three aisles over ...
"Patti, has the woman ever tied your innocent baby under the kitchen sink?"

Patti, shaking her head sadly, would respond right on cue,
"No, she never went quite that far."

Carmen, sniffing a bit self-righteously, knowing she had temporarily won top position as most mistreated, would say, "I rest my case."

My kids are bad.

I rest my case.