A couple of years ago, I gave my fitness app my motivation for being fit. I want to be able to play with my grandchildren. The app told me this week that I’m on track to reach my goals. It turns out that the best training for keeping up with a one-year-old is keeping up with a one-year-old.
I flew up to Ohio to be with Esther on the occasion of the birth of my first granddaughter. I was so blessed to arrive a few hours before Vera’s birth and was able to write about it in my last scribble. Little Vera was well cared for by her mommy, who we encouraged to dedicate herself to eating, sleeping, and nursing for at least a week. I brought up Esther’s meals, changed Vera’s diapers, and held her here and there, but this Nana’s main job was keeping up with big brother Misha, who will turn two in a couple of months.
Misha is a man of few words, but he was more than willing to put me through his toddler boot camp. Since I slept on a twin bed in his room, we woke up together. Well I woke up early as I always do and listened to audiobooks and social media videos on my headphones until around nine when Misha woke up. Then I’d get dressed in a hurry and lift him out of his crib. I changed his diaper and dressed him up, and we headed for the kitchen where we ate breakfast together. Then we went back upstairs and played. I made ramps for his cars, which he used with delighted squeals of, “Weee.” Then he took the ramps apart and held out the pieces with a question in his eyes. I rebuilt them, and we started again. Then I counted little dinosaur blocks and read him books. Misha moved us from the floor to the sofa and back again, over and over, strengthening my get off the floor skills.
After a long midday nap, I often took Misha out to a place where he could run. Our first day out, once the snowy Ohio roads were melted enough not to scare me, I took Misha to a Barnes & Noble. I was longing for a place that looked familiar and wanted to buy Misha some books that I enjoyed reading to my kids, like Hop Toad, Go Dogs Go, and Hand Hand Fingers Thumb. It was a huge store, so I spent a good two hours playing follow the leader. Misha found the three steps going up to the in-store Starbucks and went up and down about five thousand times. What a special way to get those elevated steps in. My phone congratulated me later. The most exciting place in the store was the handicap ramp up to said Starbucks. We ran down the ramp with abandon. Misha always beat me. He would race around the corner, and when I came around, he would pose like he was heading out into the store and then laugh and turn around and run past me up the ramp again. About ten minutes in, I wished that I had started counting. When I got tired, I boosted my confidence with thoughts like the following:
“I can keep up with a toddler!”
“If he can do it, so can I!”
“Just think how well he’ll sleep tonight!”
After forty minutes or so, Misha mixed it up, and we kept going up and down the ramp backwards with a twirl on each end. I kept going until I was dizzy and thought I couldn’t do another step. That’s when I carried Misha to the children’s section to buy our books and escape.
John Ben sometimes had errands to run, which kept Misha and me home in the afternoons, but Misha had ways of making toddler circuits to keep Nana in shape. One afternoon we spent an hour going down the back stairs backwards (my idea for safety). Then we ran through the living room and dining room to the foyer, where we twirled before going up the front stairs. Then we walked backwards through the upstairs hallway to the back stairs and repeated.
On occasions I tried to teach Misha the only line dance I know, The Cupid Shuffle. He liked stepping sideways and said, “side, side.” I couldn’t get him to kick, and the walk by yourself turned into more twirling.
During naptime I read novels and often pulled out my music books to practice note reading and unsuccessfully tried to memorize the Circle of Fifths like Grandma urged me to do when I was ten years old. Esther and I watched a couple of movies together and sometimes sat side by side writing essays. One of my favorite memories was putting Misha down for a nap and going to check on Esther and Vera, who were also taking midday naps. Seeing my sweet Esther asleep brought me waves of love. As much as I love my grandchildren, it’s Esther who is still my baby.
Such a simple life. Such a good, simple life.
I felt sad when John Ben and Misha dropped me off at the airport, but immediately my mind was turned towards home. Once I went through security, I called Basil, who had already arrived at the airport after spending the long weekend working at the Antiochian Village in Pennsylvania.
“I’m past security. Where are you?”
“I’m at the gate trying to sleep.”
I bought a snack and headed out to find Basil. I had been working on a rewrite of Syra’s Scribbles II in which Basil was a one-year-old like Misha is now, so part of me was looking for my sweet little son. After not seeing any familiar faces, I walked over to the big man wearing black pants who had his black leather jacket over his face. Ignoring what the people around me must think, I walked up to him and put my face inches from his. I recognized his nose and mouth. He felt me staring at him and opened his eyes for a second. I let him sleep and kicked his feet when it was time to board the plane.
He was wide awake during our layover, but we split up to eat lunch after not agreeing what to eat at the Baltimore airport food court. I met a new friend and headed back to the gate, where I took out my music books. I read through the exercises and held up my left hand, putting my fingers up and down while imagining playing the cello. At some point, I looked up and caught Basil a couple of rows down, grinning at me and signaling me with his fingers. I called him on my cell phone and, through my giggles, explained what I was doing and asked him to take a picture.
I slept through the next flight. When we got back to Albuquerque, we were aligned with each other once again and went out for sushi. We talked about movies and television shows and had a good time with each other. My teens welcomed me home with grunts and eye rolls. I spent most of the next day in bed with a low-grade fever. I don’t think I was sick. My body needed time to recover from a physically demanding ten days.
My children love me again, and I’m back to cooking, cleaning, reading homework essays, and shuttling people around. Life is complicated. The juniper is in bloom, which aggravates my allergies and gives me fatigue, and there’s so much to do.
Being able to play with my grandchildren remains my motivation for health and fitness. Long gone are the days when I could have run circles around anyone, when I would skip through a parking lot because walking couldn’t contain my exuberance. Everything makes me so tired these days, but everyone older than fifty tells me that I’m still young yet. There’s got to be a good way to build up my stamina so that when Esther, John Ben, Misha, and Vera join us this summer, I’ll be ready for whatever Misha asks of me. My teens and adult children don’t keep me physically active. Maybe I can fit walking backwards, getting up off the ground, and twirling into my morning routine before the kids and I head out the door.
Syra's Scribbles 