From Dawn to Dusk, Grandparent’s Job Is Never Done

We were reminded over the weekend what it is like to have children.

As usual, our weekend was complicated enough. I had to make a talk in San Pedro on Saturday; my wife had to be present at her counseling center’s annual barbecue on Sunday afternoon, and on Monday she had to sell Christmas cards for the Assistance League and I had to check into Huntington Memorial Hospital for a cardiac test.

Meanwhile, our older son and our daughter-in-law had flown to San Francisco for a three-day weekend, she having to attend a physical therapists’ meeting there. Their three children, Alison, 14; Casey, 12, and Trevor, 9, were to be left in the care of their maternal grandmother, who was coming up from Vista.

At 9 a.m. Saturday our phone rang. It was the maternal grandmother’s husband. He said she had the flu.

We began to change our plans. First, my wife couldn’t go with me to San Pedro. She had to go to our son’s house in Mar Vista, on the Westside, to take care of the children.

That evening I ate alone at the Packard Grill. In the morning I fed our dog and our five wild cats. I was glad it was normally not my chore.

Then I had to drive out to Mar Vista to take over so my wife could go to the barbecue. Casey was having lunch with a friend. When he got home at 2 I drove the three children to the barbecue at the center, on Pico near Fairfax. My wife expected me to put in an appearance.

Trevor and I grilled Farmer John Dodger Dogs. The other children weren’t hungry. Then we sat around. It was an older crowd, and the children were soon bored. We took our leave and went home.

The children immediately turned on television while they did their homework. I don’t think they were actually watching television, they just had it on. Either that or they have developed some capacity for dual attention.

I went into their parents’ bedroom to watch the end of the Raiders-Broncos game. When my wife came home I was watching the news.

“Is this how you watch the children?” she asked.

I protested. Did she expect me to literally watch them every minute? Well, no, of course not.

That evening we had planned to have dinner in Pasadena with our younger son and his wife and their son, Chris, who was going into the Army the next day. Since we didn’t want to drive the children all the way to Pasadena for dinner, our younger son and his family decided to drive out to West Los Angeles. We met them at Rosie’s barbecue. We all had ribs and took home a sack of bones for our various dogs.

However, Alison was not with us. I had driven her to a nearby home, where she was to spend the evening baby-sitting. If she was old enough to baby-sit, I wondered, why wasn’t she old enough to take care of her younger brothers?

My wife said something about the boys not liking to be left in the charge of their sister. Male chauvinism, I suppose.

After dinner I drove home for the night so I could feed the dog and cats in the morning. My wife had suggested that I cancel my hospital visit so she could sell Christmas cards, but I thought the test might be crucial. She had to stay with the children all day because it was Veterans Day and school was out. She canceled her stint at the Assistance League.

That evening she was to pick up our son and his wife at the airport and we were to take the family out to dinner. However, I didn’t know whether my test would require me to stay in the hospital overnight, so that plan was put on hold.

The test was something they call imaging. A technician had me lie down and put some kind of an instrument on one side of my neck. I could hear a whooshing sound, like a fountain, and out of the corner of my eye I could see fountain-like silhouettes gushing up on a screen. Then he did the other side.

It only took 45 minutes. He said the idea was to see how much blood was going to my brain. He wouldn’t tell me whether I passed. I have noticed several signs lately, however, that not enough blood is going to my brain.

I drove back out to Mar Vista so I could stay with Casey while my wife drove Alison and Trevor to the airport. Her little Japanese car doesn’t have enough room for all of them.

When they got home from the airport, we all went to Hamburger Hamlet for dinner.

In the morning my wife fed the dog and the cats. We were back to normal.