TALKING AT GRANDPA

Conceeded: I have not had children in my life. I know very little about them beyond what I learned as a pre-teen, attending the needs of a younger brother and sister. Maybe that’s why I’ve never felt an imperative to have a brood of the little beastards clattering about the house.

Their primary job, it seems, is to spread crumbs around and to leave sticky globs of unspeakable chewed-and-discarded purple or lime green things on the arm of the chair where my evening drink customarily sits. There’s ample evidence in most child-burdened homes of their perpetually-grimy little paws and the litter of sharp, unseen remains of unbreakable plastic toys which are a menace to those who dare walk barefoot across the carpet.

I write this in a few moments of quiet after an hour-long visit this afternoon from my great-niece, a force of nature not yet five years old. It is not unlike the sudden calm after a great storm, a severe artillery shelling or the deafened ears of one who stood too close to an exploding propane tank.

Admitted coward that I am, I was able to sulk in my little lair, pretending to be occupied on the computer for most of the visit, while both Mother and Grandmother rode herd on a moppet with the energy of a hurricane. Still, there came a moment of distraction for the elders and my privacy was invaded. I found myself facing a hazel-eyed chatterbox whose thirty inches of height apparently contain all the lore, legends and knowledge of mankind, all of which she attempted to convey to me in a remarkably short time.

I feigned interest with the raising of an eyebrow or widening of the eyes and an occasional “Oh?” slipped in between her pauses for breath – which, with her pure and unsullied lungs, were brief and infrequent. I puffed my cigarette and blew second-hand smoke her direction. Undeterred, she rattled on. And on. And on.

In less than five minutes, I was apprised of the fact that no one wanted to see her underwear beneath the little cotton sundress she wore, that she sometimes gave herself a “wedgie” – with appropriate gestures – that I had to feel her face where a droplet of perspiration leaked down her temple, that she could turn a somersault – and did, twice, as proof – that no one was supposed to see her boobies either, although she said, “I only have little bitty ones.” I learned that her brother was visiting his birth father in Iowa, that the newest pony in our string tried to drag her through the dirt when she grabbed its halter, and she didn’t know what that dark smudge was on her white sandals but it was “Probably horse poop,” which led to her assertion that food makes people poop, but it was lemonade and soda that make you pee. A bottle of water, she says, does not. Water makes dogs pee., and she has a sore on her back where a bug bit her, but I shouldn’t rub it for her because she herself had “…itched it a lot.”

She told me a story of being hoist into a tree, “…a really big tree,” by her older brother when she was six (which, if factual, had to have occurred in a prior incarnation) and that her mother couldn’t find her until the boy confessed to having hidden the baby. I protested, “How could that have happened? You’re only four…you haven’t been six yet.” A split second passed. “No, I was…two.” “Two?” “No, one! Just one!” Game. Set. Match.

She prattled away and I was aloof, borne along by the certain knowledge that even the youngest of the feminine sex can manage seemingly cogent conversation without the active participation of a listener.

I found myself mesmerized by the purity of her skin with its faint underblush of rose, the health of pink lips and gums and perfectly-formed miniature teeth, the intrinsic knowledge of the female of the effect of widening those amazing hazel eyes, the fine arch of brows and the slightly sweaty perfection of her sandy brown curls and beautifully-formed ears, the fineness of her arms and legs and her expressive little finger gestures.

Ten years from now or twelve, she will begin to make informed decisions about her existence. I can only hope to be around to see her then, and to hear her chatter on about her comings and goings, her friends and that “icky new boy” at school on whom she will have – and won’t admit – a huge crush.

For better or worse, she’s going to be a knockout, physically. And she’s already showing precocious intelligence that promises to become a handful for her parents.

I hope she will always be that little typhoon of gab, the font of information, however flawed, the open-minded and free-speaking individual she promises to become.

I can only pray that no one – no one – has the temerity to crush her lively interest in the world as it reveals itself to her, to dull or to blunt her curiosity, or to decry even the mistakes she will inevitably commit or to shame her into becoming a mere cipher in an already-too-bland world.

And yes, I am ashamed of myself for blowing my cigarette smoke at her. It was more childish than her chattering, and a greater sin than she can yet imagine. The urge took me by surprise, and I have no excuse.

I understand on reflection that it sprung from an envy of what it is to be a child and to be perfect in every way.