Gra'Moosey!

Of all the names I've ever answered to, "Gra'Moosey" makes me smile the biggest.

When my granddaughter launches her whole eight-year-old self at me from the mini-trampoline, screeching this moniker as I walk by, I cannot help but beam. How could I not catch her on my back and play horse to her jockey? How fast can I gallop down the hall? PDQ!

This summer, she and I have been hangin' together five days a week. While I'd love to take her on field trips and have pals come to play, that's only worked out very few times. Mostly, she wants to  hang around at my house, which has plenty of space to play, and fresh blackberries out back that need to be tested every few hours. I just have to promise not to weed when we go outside. Any deviation from total attention is looked at askance. 

Recently, her imaginative play scenarios have included setting many traps for "Harry the Robber." Not sure what Dr. Phil would say, but I surmise that since her father remarried a few days ago, she's worried about love being stolen away. She is SO creative with her trap-setting schemes, using Lego pieces under a blanket spread on the floor to foil Harry and hurt his feet, an old-fashioned iron hanging from a rope for him to bump his head on, pipe cleaner hand traps, and magical rays that stop him in his tracks. All of this to prevent him from robbing DevCo, her enterprising business concern in the back room, where she makes great looking mini food items out of play dough. If you're ever in the market for pizza, spaghetti and meat balls (or vegetarian pasta), tostadas, tacos, and desserts of every kind, you know where to come. Just don't show up looking like a robber. You'll be foiled for SURE!

The exuberance is catchy. I totally suspend expectations that I'll get any work done in the hours we're together. It's ALL about PLAY. Accepting that makes all the difference. I can surrender to the flow of imaginative choreography for the day, including making meals into picnics, and finding just the right record to put on the stereo as accompaniment for our tasks. She's fond of the musicals Oliver, The Secret Garden, and You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown.

My husband, also known as Gran'Pun, has been home for this July 4th Holiday, and got to experience the joy of play and her vivid, writerly imagination. This will give him a reference point for when he returns to camp and asks me at the end of our long days, "How was your day?" Exhaustion never felt so good.

My Grammy Florence Stern must've played with me to some extent. I know she loved me unconditionally. I felt it and grew up with that infusion as a buffer to the worrisome times of my childhood.

My hope is that my beloved granddaughter will feel the love pouring out of my heart toward her and that it can be a similar elixir or infusion of absolute love. May the love that this Gra'Moosey has for her be a buffer against all of life's curve balls... including slime ball robbers.