Granny Run

Nora has to have her appendix out today...

any chance you can come down?

Is this a paid position?

I bound at the first opportunity to see the boys: fling cosmetics and workout clothes in an expensive multicolored Tumi overnight bag and drive 4 1/2 hours to Long Island listening to 60s on 6 or a variety of TED podcasts.

What's your ETA? 

90 min?

Awesome. Godspeed.

LUNCH?

No thanks.

Ha!

I'll make you avocado toast.

My daughter is terribly busy working on a new project for her company that is frightfully hush-hush. 

"I don't even know why I ever tell you anything," she says. "You are the worst at keeping secrets!"

"Only within the family," is my response.

After the obligatory begging for details, I feign complete disinterest, which results in a hint: "You can google Oheka Castle in Newsday."

"You can't tell me about something that's been published in Newsday?"

"That's correct."

When I arrive, my daughter is putting Ollie down for a nap, which leaves Tripp and me free to do whatever we want. She is gone in a blur of chic and heels.

"What shall we do first?" I ask my eldest grandson.

"Let's go into the playroom and find something."

"Okay."

We discover paints in a plastic tub, a rainbow dotted smock, brushes and paper. I am tasked with mixing the paints, fetching water to rinse the brushes, spreading newspaper, and taping down the large white sheet of drawing paper. Tripp uses each color just once. ("I already used blue.") When he's finished, he prints TRIPPs WO

                                                                                                                                          RLD on a rendering vibrant with red, yellow, orange, and green.

Next, he's a zooming butterfly, turquoise wings spread. ("Mommy and Ollie and I made this costume," Tripp reports proudly.)

I am introduced to Sailor, his nursery school class take home stuffed Golden Retriever. The idea is that he and Sailor are photographed having various adventures together, which he writes about with Mommy. This week Sailor hid in a large wicker trunk with other stuffed friends, wore a cowboy hat, and was dangled out the car window.

Tripp and Sailor and I are getting Carvel.

Are you kidding me?? Ollie is asleep upstairs!!!

Oops! 😜

After a quick check on Ollie, we trundle outside to practice some yoga. We do Downward Dog, Tree Pose, Mountain Pose, Running in Dizzying Circles Pose, Hopping on Alternating Feet Pose, and Lying Down Pose.

"That's actually called shavasana," I explain. "It means Corpse Pose in Sanskrit."

"What's a corpse?"

"A dead body."

"Actually, it's just called Lying Down Pose, not Corpse Pose."

We kick the soccer ball, and Tripp is just showing me his moves on the scooter when we hear the seductive jingly chimes of an ice cream truck. We dash to the front of the house just in time to see the braking taillights disappear down the hill and out of sight. We are crushed.

"I really, really wanted ice cream," Tripp murmurs, head bowed.

"Me too," I sigh. "I bet he'll be back though."

"When?"

"I think he's just making a practice run."

"What does that mean?"

"It means he's letting everyone know he's back for the season so we can be ready with our money when he drives by again."

"Are we ready with our money?"

"We are," I say, producing a $10 bill.

"I am just going to stand right here on my Waiting Rock," Tripp announces. We wait together, taking periodic breaks to listen for Ollie and to practice more advanced yoga, such as Running Away From a Dangerous Bug Pose and Avoiding the Stinging Bee pose.

We wait and wait, and whenever we hear the elusive canned jingle, our hopes rise.

"Here he comes!" one of us shouts, but the silly ice cream man never does return, and we give up and go inside and talk about a new cartoon called PJ Masks, which features a gecko and possibly an owlet.

"I think you mean TJ Maxx," I suggest, as in perhaps the gecko suit he wants is found at the box store.

"No, Beauma, it's PJ Maksks," Tripp corrects me. "PJ Maksks."

"PJ Masks?"

"Yes, PJ Maksks."

"I think you have an extra "sks" in there."

We are both giggling when Mommy arrives, an unrestrained sort of joy that occurs on a lovely spring day when we are playing and playing and not minding so much if there's ice cream or not. It's all in the waiting.

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