Being Grandma

The reason I moved to Nevada seven years ago, was to be closer to most of my extended family. That included, at the time, two grandchildren. Now, there are four of them, and I drive up the interstate to visit them as often as I can. After spending a week trying to get ahead on my class assignments, I made one of those trips to spend some time with the buddies. I had several agendas.

First, it's summer, so we wanted to do some adventures for which summer vacation is designed. We met up at the Bingham Canyon Copper Mine in the Salt Lake Valley. It's the biggest open-pit copper mine in the world. And it is awesome, I'll tell you. It is a really, really big mine. You feel a little dizzy when you look over the fence, down into the mine. Also, they have some enormous trucks there. The littlest one (2 years old) LOVED the trucks! She was thrilled and would have just spent her whole morning leaning over the fence pointing at the trucks.

 

However, she wasn't so excited to be near the big tires that those big trucks use. They have one of the tires as a photo-op in front of the visitor's center, and she was quite reluctant to stand near it for grandma to take a picture. Plus, her brother, 6 years old, just loves to be silly whenever asked to pose for a photo. So with her squealing, "Nooooo, no big tire!" and brother laughing maniacally and hiding, it is amazing I got this shot! (Actually, I offered to pay him 25 cents to use in the binocular-thingy if he'd stand there...) (It worked for both of us!)

Big Sister calmed down Little Sister and we got several cute "posed" shots before Brother decided to rush off again! That's Cousin in front of the big tire with the others.

We had a fun day. Then we went to a restaurant to use up my gift card given by a grateful student to me on the last day of school.

After that...I got to attend a minor league baseball game with the Cousin, also known as 1st Grandchild. What a gorgeous night! The beautiful mountains, the clear blue twilight sky, green grass, fun times!!  After the game, we went down and sat on the infield and watched a terrific fireworks show and then---even more fun---any child who wanted to, could go line up and run the bases! We went home and flopped into bed!

The next afternoon, I went back to their house to accomplish my second reason for the visit. I videotaped 1st Grandchild being the "bad example" for my school project. The assignment was to make a movie that could be used for a public service ad about some type of educational issue. So, I planned to make a little video entitled, "How to Raise a Reader."  My grandson, who reads above grade-level in two languages (Spanish and English) was willing to be the bad example: playing on the computer, the DS, the iPad, and his Wii. I strung it all together in the segment, "What NOT to do."  But, ultimately, he was the star in the finale as the Reading Boy, too.

I also taped the other three in various examples of great things to do so your kids will love reading and then I drove back to Nevada and spent a day with the movie-maker program on my computer and made a really spiffy film. I uploaded it  to the professor, washed my laundry and flew off to Maryland the next morning.

(And, sorry, I tried to  load up the video and it wouldn't go...trust me, it's wonderful--I got all the points for it.)

And: in case you're wondering: here are my suggestions:

1) Read to your babies and toddlers, everyday!

2) Provide lots of books in your home. (library books are free...)

3) Motivating experiences encourage reading. (ie: library summer reading clubs, school contests, magazine subscriptions in their name)

4) Don't allow unlimited screen time (all the screens--computer, DS, TV, PS3, etc.)

5) Read, read, read---even if you don't read English; read to your children in whatever language you speak, because reading skills transfer.