Endurance

Years ago, when I was in my late 20s, my mother told me that I should have my children while I was young enough to enjoy them.

My older sister who was sitting nearby. Her four children were tearing around their grandparents house screaming. Karen was pregnant with her fifth. She looked exhausted.

“Is that true,” I asked her.

“No,” she said. “You have to have your children while you're young enough to endure them.”

I was thirty when Chris was born and sixty when he presented me with my only grandchild.

Tonight, I was babysitting with Evan while his parents were at a company party. It was literacy night at Highland Elementary School.. It was up to Grandma to take Evan to the event. Highland School is only a little more than a block from Evan's house. Even before he was conceived, Chris and Tisha picked out this house because they knew that Evan could walk to school and that is what we did on a warm starry night. At least I walked. At seven Evan is a little dynamo. He tore ahead of me to the corner. He waited until I reached him, crossed and tor ahead to the school.

I was tired just watching him.

The school served a simple lunch of hot dogs, vegetables and fruit. Evan went manic on me, running around with other boys, with me chasing him down to finish his lunch. His teacher sat down and talked with me. Evan had had a bad day at school, combining word sounds to make new words and coming up with “swears”. But we agreed that he was a smart boy, top of his class. He's an excellent reader and good at math, too. There's a lot of his father in him, I told her, and he turned out fine. I have faith in Evan.

We had a sing-a-long with the children in theory taking turns at the mic, but instead the boys crowded around and belted out the songs. Loudest of all was Evan, but I didn't mind because he was right in tune.

Next came a chance for the children to make trail mix following a recipe they had to read. Evan was first in line which was a shame because then he had nothing else to do but wrestle around with his friends. Before I knew what was happening, he had bounced over to another group of children that were doing a climbing exercise on the wall. I had to rush over to get him back to his own group.

I was tiring out.

When it was finally his group's turn to go to the climbing wall, he was right at the front of the line again. He climbed like a monkey then came back in line to do it again. I let him stand in line because it kept him busy though this tricky grandmother knew he wasn't supposed to get another turn. He enjoyed waiting this time because his friends were with him. They told silly jokes from a joke book he liked. He is a comedian in training. I tell Chris that he has a young Robin Williams on his hands.

Finally we were led into a room where a reading instructor explained to parents how to teach children to read, showing them strategies. Evan had let every other child go before him because he had figured out that there wouldn't be enough chairs so he would be allowed to sit on the teacher's swivel chair and turn it around and around and around until I put a stop to that.

There was a smart board in the room, which is essentially a big, big computer screen. The instructor showed all the tricks: putting a list on the screen, marking it with a “magic pen” that uses no ink and erasing the whole thing with her hand.

Evan was so excited. He wanted to play with this new technology. I was impressed that he later talked the instructor into letting him try it and was able to find new things to do with it.

There there was one more exercise, but I said, no, it was time to go home. Evan has a strict bedtime. Besides, I was winding down myself. We collected our free book and walked home. I rushed him along so fast I forgot my gloves and hat but it was a warm evening and I hadn't exactly spent a fortune on them.

We still had to get him in his pajamas, and of course there was reading time. I read him a Pokemon book and we started a second, a Batman book, this time taking turns on the paragraphs. He reads precisely and with great expression.

Now he is asleep and I may soon be myself if Chris and Tisha don't come back soon. It is past my bed time.

I really should have become a grandparent while I was young enough to endure him.