July 16, 2014
My Instead: My
granddaughter Abbey and I played miniature golf, just the two of us.
The night before, I had
been working on getting (ok, bribing) my granddaughter Abbey to spend the night
with me. (She gets so homesick at night so she rarely is my overnight houseguest.)
Among the pieces of bait I offered her were a miniature golf outing, a campout
in my bedroom, a movie, her own personally-requested snacks and I’m sure some more
things that have escaped my memory banks at the moment. Alas, none of these worked.
I felt bad. She wanted so bad to play miniature golf, but I said “no” if she
does not spend the night. I could not see me driving her all the way back home
after our golf outing. There are logistics involved, after all.
The next day I suggested
to Abbey’s mom, my daughter-in-law Shaundra, that Abbey and I play miniature
golf that night with no pressure to spend the night. I had plenty of work that
day and had to stain my mom’s deck floor as the last thing on my list. I worked
until 7:30. Shaundra helped me out and dropped Abbey off at my mom’s to save
time. After I finished the deck, Abbey and I went to my house so I could clean
up and change clothes (in record time). Then we headed to Centerfield in
Fairview Heights to achieve our golf mission at last.
It was a perfect night…low
humidity, low heat, no forecasted showers, no crowd and virtually no bugs. We
started our game and figured out quickly just how “accurately” we were going to
keep score. Abbey just may be more suited as a hockey player the way she scoots
that ball around. But I have to say she did keep track of her “strokes” and was
oftentimes the one to write down the scores.
Abbey was energetically
and amazingly “into” this miniature golf thing. I was getting such a kick out
of her. And as usual these days, I work very hard at staying present with the moment,
no matter what I’m doing. It’s especially
a driving force when I’m doing my “instead” and “especially” especially when
the “instead” involves one of my grandkids. After all, a childhood only comes around
once and it comes at warped speed.
By the way, Abbey spent
the night afterwards!
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