Summer time and the “livin’ is easy.”

My grandchildren are growing in to be real little people, cute, funny, and full of surprises. It’s a lot of fun, as millions of grandparents will attest. However, I’ve recently begun to realize that I need to develop an arsenal of granny activities to have on hand, be prepared to share and have some fun ready for visits, both overnight and just for the day.

When I was a young mother with five children, they seemed to manufacture their own amusements, with just a smidgen of guidance from Mom. At least that’s what I remember, but my daughter and her brothers tell me nay..that it was I, who was always cooking up something fun.

They reminesced yesterday about day trips to the beach where I would wake them up at sunrise so they could watch the sun come up as we drove to a local favorite lake to swim, fish, picnic, hike or boat, depending upon our preferences for the day.

They talked about art days, where I’d pile the picnic table full of paint and paper and brushes and they’d create the masterpieces that still line my family room walls. One of them shared his memories of the day where I had each of them dig up, remove the sod, from one square foot of yard and see how many insects and living creatures they could find in their one square foot of creation.

Their  favorite story was how I let Andrew, the youngest son, cart in a mountain of sand and dirt to his room one summer when he was six. We had a patio building project and the leftover pile of sand and dirt became his summer obsession. He created roads, drove his cars through them, used sticks and stones and whatever he could lay his  hands on to build a fantasy world, where an odd assortment of hero action figures combined with Hot wheels and dump trucks and bits of lego buildings and lincoln logs to make Andrew’s World.

As cooler weather set in, he didn’t want to abandon his sand world, and so his father built a special 4 x 4 plywood base with rails around it that we placed on an old table in his room. For the next few months, this pile of dirt and sand and rocks continued to hold his interest and play time. He said, “I was the coolest kid on the block because you actually encouraged me to have dirt in my room.”

Memories of learning and of summer. What lessons did Andrew learn with his mountain of dirt? We couldn’t score it on a formal test, but we can measure it in the man he became, an artist, a creative genius in his mother’s opinion, who still plays in the dirt and creates unique masterpieces with his life and his work. A young man who walks to the beat of a different drum for sure, but the beat is solid and the man is a good one, loved by everyone who knows him for imimitable creativity.

Looking around my office and “junk room/storage closet gone wild”, I see the makings of several fun art projects and science experiments. Maybe it’s time to be the grandmother who echoes the mother I was, and find new adventures, forge new memories of summer time and livin’ and learnin’, Malone style!

Have some summer fun and “learning” with your kids or grandchildren this summer.  It’s true, what they say about dirty dishes and housecleaning. It’ll wait..kids grow up..and summer days are waiting. Go play!