Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Goodbye Jan Berenstain

Berenstain books were Jamie's favorites when she was little, and the grandkids love them too. I think we still have some of the old ones from when Jame was young.

Thank you Jan Berenstain for all the joy your writing and illustrating brought. What fun it must have been to spend a lifetime with her husband creating such iconic books.

Getting Goosebumps

Eli and I have a new tradition of watching RL Stine's "Goosebumps" stories on TV when he gets home from karate in the afternoon.That is, if he's been good and Mom gives the OK. For the uninitiated, Goosebumps was a popular series of scary books for kids back when my daughter was young. It's like Twilight Zone for the middle-school crowd.

We both have the sense that we're doing something naughty because really he's a bit young to watch the televised versions of the stories. Some are just goofy, like yesterday's episode where the big brother accidentally made his little sister disappear by way of a magic clock. But a couple of them have been intense for a six-year old, and he has to hide his face to watch. Yet -- he's riveted, and if I suggest the show's too much and maybe we should turn it off he wails "Nooooo MooooonMa. It's not too scary for me!"

Then he opens one of the big fans we got for the kids in San Francisco and watches the TV through the black material. The fabric is sheer, fake silk, and you can still see the action through it. I checked.

I LOVED being scared as a kid -- ghost stories, scary movies, all of it. I still do, but not gory, slasher movies. Films like "Shutter Island" are what raise my goosebumps these days. And Poltergeist, yeah, Poltergeist still does it too. I watched Poltergeist at my grandparents house by myself and had to go wake up my grandma to talk to me for a while after it was over. And I was 15 years old!

I've learned that not everyone shares my and Eli's love of a good scare -- just read a report that said approximately one-third of us avoid scary movies and thrill-seeking behaviors at all costs, another one-third (mostly men) enjoy the adrenaline rush of fear enough to try extreme adventures like bungee jumping and take pride in facing their fears and surviving.

The last third, like me, probably enjoys a good scary movie now and then because it gives us the opportunity to explore dark images that we otherwise avoid thinking about; the same reason kids love Halloween.

And Goosebumps.

Friday, February 24, 2012

Perfection

The other day I was working out a recipe for an aromatherapy "Calm Down" blend for the book and it got me thinking about how grandkids aren't always perfect or even fun to be around. This is a hard thing to admit. I've rarely heard a grandparent say "I love 'em, but those kids were wild monsters the last time they were here and I couldn't wait for their parents to come home."

Of course, grandparents aren't always that fun to hang out with either. Sometimes we're tired and grouchy or secretly resentful that we cancelled our kayaking weekend to babysit. Sometimes we snap, raise our voices, have moments of impatience that make us feel immediately ashamed.

You don't see those pictures in the brag book, the ones with Grandma's hair all disheveled and the house torn up -- Grandpa on his hands and knees cleaning some sort of hazardous waste from the carpet that everyone knows is going to leave a stain that will NEVER EVER come out of there.

Grandma with her mouth screwed wide open screaming "Get down from there!" for the millionth time or Grandpa with his clamped shut just trying not blast a string of obsenities out the back door.

No, those are the pictures we Grandparents lock up in our minds' eyes because they remind us too much of parenting. Too real and tired and too this is why I can't have nice things in the house.

Maybe we don't talk about the bad parts because we understand how quickly it all passes -- the unpleasantness as well as the pleasures. We know that in about five minutes our grandchildren will be teenagers and might not want to come to our house for a weekend anymore. Won't ask us to howl at the moon or play Candyland. So we suck it up, snuggle on the couch and watch their favorite video with them for the tenth time and invest in the best carpet cleaner money can buy.

They're worth it. Little angels.

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

More than Just a Pretty Face

I recently read a study by the University of Southern California that concluded that children who have an affectionate relationship with at least one of their grandparents scored higher on self-esteem tests than those who didn't. In fact, the positive affects of good grandparental relationships can even counterbalance the negative affects of divorce on a child's self-esteem.

In other words -- it's an important job.