In the Interest of Science

When your particular field of science involves writing a grandparent blog, your summer affords abundant opportunity to conduct field research.  While some of these raw data are substantial enough to support blog entries, others remain simply random scribbles in a notebook, unrelated to one other and lacking the length or depth needed to stand as posts on their own.

Nevertheless, they capture poignant or humorous glimpses into a kid's unique, creative way of looking at and talking about the world.  Or, perhaps, they offer "snapshots" of a moment that, though it may be inconsequential in itself, begs to be preserved.  Following, then, is a sampling of such notes from Googie's research log dated "Summer 2013."

• "If you shoot a man deer, you get ham."--Sooby on hunting, gathering, and the culinary arts
• "To make lasagna, you need monsterella cheese."--Pooh, on Italian cuisine
• "Here is a whole basket of 'gift tops.'"--Sooby, on discovering a stash of pre-made gift-wrapping bows (in a closet where she shouldn't have been looking).

And then, a few of my favorite anecdotes:

"What do you want to hear?" I ask Bootsie, who is wanting to sing at bedtime.
"Fecal, fecal," she answers, matter-of-factly.
My mind races.  What could she mean?  Then, suddenly, it dawns on me.  I smile to myself and begin the well-known children's favorite she has requested: 
"Twinkle, twinkle, little star . . . ."

Sooby is staying a few days with me and I am trying to get her to think about going to bed after an especially busy day.
"It's late," I say.  "Your little body needs to rest."
"No, it doesn't," she tells me.  "It's aching for action."

Another time, she is on Skype demonstrating how to drop a coin in her piggy bank.  She releases the coin with a dramatic flourish, then, in a tone of near reverence, remarks, "It sounds beautiful when it crashes."



 

Pooh has convinced me to let him sip chocolate milk out of a quart jug with a straw. 

"You spill that," I warn, "and I'm going to make you eat toenails for breakfast."

He considers this carefully. 

"That's too hard," he says, contemplating a compromise.  "Maybe I could just go without dessert."

 

 

Sometimes I picture these kids rummaging around in "Googie's Attic" in years to come--maybe when they are teens or college kids or even young parents.  I may or may not still be around then.  It makes me smile to imagine them reading about the things they did or said when they were little.

 

They are things that, otherwise, they might never know.  That is why I record them here.  That is why I practice this field of science.