Although a wondrous experience, it comes with a learning curve steep enough that I’ve fallen off of it a couple of times.
For instance ….
The other day, I almost missed a fundamental lesson in human psychology being offered free of charge from not-quite 2-year-old Finnegan.
In my defense, the circumstances were unusual.
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For starters, it was one of the few days the little guy hadn’t arrived at our house with the infection of the week from Miss Joni’s childcare. To be clear, it’s not Miss Joni’s fault, which is the reason I’ve changed her name.
Being a responsible child care provider, she receives the monthly newsletter from the Centers for Disease Control laden with diseases the U. S. Surgeon General has decided should be cultivated that month among the nation’s children.
As a courtesy, she provides each family with a menu of infections below a dotted “cut here” line on the same sheet that reminds parents of that month’s birthday parties. That way, the sheet can be detached and taken to the pediatrician’s office to hasten treatment.
This takes us to complication two.
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As he trundled by, the toddler I assume to be ill was carrying a tissue in front of his face. True, it wasn’t optimally positioned to contain a nasal cloudburst. But, at this point, grandma and I take it as a positive when he’s carrying only one tissue.
Thankfully gone are the days when he pulled tissue after tissue from the box like a magician pulling rabbit after rabbit out of his hat and giggling through helium gas. (As an aside: We recently bought a new plunger in preparation for next developmental stage in which Finnegan uses his maturing motor skills to harness centrifugal force and unspool the bathroom tissue, then look for a place to hide it.)
What the little guy running around with the tissue actually was up to penetrated my thick skull only after he almost knocked himself over with a simulated sneeze.
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That’s right, he wasn’t actually sneezing because he wasn’t sick. Like a pitcher in spring training, he was practicing for his version of sneezing in the majors. Because he clearly wanted to do it right.
First came the wind-up (The inhale or the “ah” phase). It included a slight drawback of the head to prepare it for the coming motion. After a slight pause, he moved on to the pitch phase, in which his eyes nearly closed, his head tilted forward and he pursed his lips to deliver the “choo.”
As he completed the follow through, a rush of breath came out through his nose with such force that he forgot to properly place his landing foot and almost lost his balance. The only thing missing from the performance was a panel of international judges to evaluate it for technical merit and artistic expression.
I almost asked grandma if we had any helium in the house.
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Thunderstruck, I first wondered whether his older brother had found some sneeze training videos on the Internet. Then the obvious hit me. He’d been watching the rest of us sneeze in real time and was trying to get the hang of it. And, frankly, I was proud see a little of my father’s sneeze in him.
The point he made better than any Ph.D.’s lecture is: Children really do learn by watching our every move.
Another lesson in my second childhood came from our 6-old grandson, Atticus.
I didn’t have to ask him twice to show me how to use his Spirograph. My first request had him locked, loaded and in full teaching mode.
Pulling out the instructional paper, he showed me the various patterns the various holes in the various circles of plastic would guide my pen to make if I could manage to keep the teeth on the edges engaged in the plastic frame.
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After I chose my piece, he supervised its placement in the frame and asked which if the four markers I’d like to use. He then looked on patiently as I did my best to rotate the piece around his frame while my tongue slid over my lips.
When I finished my design and the he did one of his own, we traded blue pen for green pen for red pen for purple pen, and colored in the spaces between the lines.
We then moved toward the ultimate point of the lesson.
After telling me he liked my pattern, Atticus pulled out the instructions again, pointed and said, “Do you want to make it into an animal, Grandpa?”
And at that moment, I almost blew it.
I rejected out-of-hand the sample figures of the chicken and duck, acting out the part of a 64-year-old man still dreaming of a gold star on his paper with all the conviction of a 2-year-old working on his sneeze.
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But kind as he is, Atticus gave me a second chance.
“You want me to help you make it into an alien, Grandpa?”
Finally getting it, I immediately said yes.
I did so not because I like aliens, but because I like my grandson.
Because it at last struck me that he might like to help me learn something.
That it might make him feel good.
When his well-practiced hand added the necessary alien appendages, he was not the only one who was happy.
Because he was teaching me.
He was showing me kindness and patience.
And it had finally come to me that as his grandpa, my job was to happily accept what he was so generously offering.
I write this because there weren’t any instructions for me about this in the Spirograph Junior kit.
It’s the kind of thing someone enjoying a second childhood has to learn on his own - much as he did in his first.
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