Read an Excerpt
Rule 1
Show up for everything...and don't forget the napkins!
One hot summer day in New York, Grandpa Alan took three of our granddaughters for ice cream. Now here's the thing about ice cream: Most people like it, but grandpas obsess over it. Grandpa Alan's favorite flavor is mint chocolate chip, and he would move mountains and anything else in his way to get a cone. Kelsey, Amanda, and Alexis were very young but not too young for ice cream. And Grandpa Alan is never too old for ice cream, so everybody was on the same page.
The three little girls came out of the ice cream shop, chins dripping and ice cream melting in avalanches on their clothes faster than they could slurp it up. No napkins.
The girls' mom (our daughter Dina) and I ran back into the store and took a pile of napkins, raced out to the hot mess, and wiped it all up. You see, grandmas have the napkin gene; grandpas do not.
Whether your grandson is batting .600 or warming the bench, you need to be there. Let's say eight-year-old Augie is the best baseball player in the league, the town, the state, the country, and on the planet. Don't just sit there and smile smugly. Jump up and down, and shout appropriate encouragement. (All right, he doesn't need to be told what he already knows, but make your presence felt.) And take him out for ice cream after the game. In fact, take the whole team.*
However, if your little Benjie is destined for greatness in a field other than left, don't just sit there glumly incognito. When he searches for you in the stands, give him a wave and a thumbs-up. Always tell him his moment in the sun is just behind the next cloud, and pile on the encouragement (even if you detest baseball).
Show up, get involved, and of course take him for après-game ice cream.**
A word about taking pictures: Forget the camera; it's so yesterday. If you don't have a smartphone, run right out into the twenty-first century and buy one. Your grandchildren already own them and will teach you how to use yours.
Don't worry, you're definitely smart enough for a smartphone. Trust me.
The tricky part is trying to show your ten thousand photos of your grandson playing shortstop to total strangers. Your success depends on eye-hand coordination: yours and your viewer's.
This would be the point at which Grandma says to nobody in particular, "I just want prints. Nobody will make me prints. You know...to carry around in my purse. Like in the good old days."
You can print out these smart-photos or go to the smart Walgreens people and ask them to do it for you, but that requires knowing how to take the photos in the first place, which gets us back to Step One with the smartphone.
Will someone, anyone at all, please give me prints of my grandchildren playing ball, going to the prom, graduating from high school, or just sitting around looking adorable and brilliant?
One more word about showing up before we leave this subject: I do understand that some grandpas are living in a foreign country or are in the witness protection program. In that case, you can't show up for anything. So don't.
"What a bargain grandchildren are! I give them my loose change, and they give me a million dollars' worth of pleasure."
-Gene Perret, comedy writer
*Don't forget the napkins.
**Well, you know about the napkins by now.
