Barbara- A grandparent's lesson in ingenuity

G’day, You would have liked Babara, a very spritely grandparent who filled her grandchildren’s lives with joy – her house was always busy and smelt good – whenever the grandkids were over they’d make cakes or brownies – and when one particular vegan daughter was coming over, Barbara would make chicken vegie pie for her meat deprived grandkids.

But one particular grandchild had her worried.  Young Olivia was a gorgeous 4 year old, very bright, well adjusted but she suffered from trichotillomania! Olivia had become an involuntary hair-puller! She would put her left hand over her head to twirl her hair into a single strand and then pull it out. As her hair line started to recede from over her right ear she just kept following it and pulling it as she went. Olivia only did it when she was tired or in bed while she sucked her other thumb. Her parents had talked to her about it and had tried Rescue remedy thinking it was a stress thing. They had reminded her and cajoled her and even tried a sharp “ah, ah” when they caught Olivia doing it in front of TV but all to no avail.

But they hadn’t tried grandma’s ingenuity.  You see, among her many talents, Barbara was also a great knitter so she and I got our heads together to solve this family crisis! We knew that Olivia loved Santa and as we were heading towards Christmas, Barbara decided to exploit that opportunity. She made a special bonnet for Olivia to wear to bed which not only had Christmas colours but it also had Rudolph’s red nose sewn into the pattern on the top of the bonnet. Olivia’s parents also bought the yukky nail bite deterrent on Olivia’s thumb to deter that part of the action and the bonnet was held in place by bobby pins. Grandma had convinced Olivia that the other reindeers were looking where to deliver presents and were attracted to Rudolph’s red nose so if Olivia wore the bonnet every night, the reindeers would know where to call. The combination worked wonders and Olivia went along with nana’s brilliant scheme.

Of course Barbara secretly was still the wondering child, loving the joy of Christmas. Her child-like passion reminded me of the wonderful words from Robert Fulgham in his book “All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten”. Here is a short excerpt:

“….what I really, really, really want for Christmas is just this: I want to be five years old again for just an hour. I want to laugh and cry a lot. I want to be picked up and rocked to sleep in someone’s arms, and carried up to bed just one more time. I know what I really want for Christmas. I want my childhood back!”

Ah, nostalgia is not like it used to be (LOL).

BTW Barbara said the trickiest part of the operation was answering Olivia’s question “but Nana, wouldn’t the reindeers know to come to our house when they saw our Christmas tree?”

So what’s the message, if you want to get on well with kids, think like a kid – Barbara’s idea was to die young, as late as possible.