I eventually learned once I was no longer outfitted to entertain kids (toys, art supplies, swings, etc.) that little kids visiting Great Grandma expected SOMETHING to entertain them, keep them occupied. It was kind of new to me, having been an official family day care home provider following all the state requirements for 8 years while I was raising my own three. After years across states and a divorce, I needed a higher paying job and my youngest needed somebody else's daycare. There was no longer a whole room in the house dedicated to kids, toys, entertainment, and education. In fact, from their perspective, it was pretty bare.
Once I fought for and won legal visitation with my one grandchild, visits were alternate weekends, plus a week for travel each summer. A huge fenced yard, climbable trees, pets, and planned activities pretty much averted boredom, and summer trips included camping, road trips to places like the Black Hills and the Lake Superior Circle Tour, often including a younger sibling of hers unrelated to me, or once even a cousin. As she got older, airplanes spanned the distance to Arizona, Washington state, and even Alaska. The farther the distance, the more packed with activities a full week was, and the more likely my youngest, now adult son came along as well. We were long past a houseful of toys by that time. I returned to an all-adult world. The treasures kept for future years and new generations were a section of the home library with special books, authors like C.S Lewis, Kipling, and Laura Ingalls Wilder, and some inherited from my parents full of photos of seashells and coral, saved from their post-retirement craft/business involving shells. Shells came with the books too, but as fragile as they are, and even then with climate change threatening their future, most of those remain packed away. A few unique ones reside in shadow boxes on the walls, and of course there is one huge conch so supervised kids can "listen to the ocean".
No toys however, despite between my family and Steve's, having all kinds of grand kids and now great grands on both sides. They don't visit all that frequently, but they still like something to play with when they're here, up to the age where adult conversations start to get interesting. Or they bring their own kids. Or both. The cycles repeat.
In the process of moving in to our last home, there were all kinds of boxes left over. We did find happy homes for the regular packing boxes with people whose own grown kids were moving off to college or had friends who could use some. But for months I kept my hands full converting informal packing boxes, often scrounged from Arizona store dumpsters for the move back north, into recyclable pieces. When we had two elementary school grandkids over, bored while the big folk talked, they discovered two things: a mattress on the floor still in a plastic cover waiting for a room to get needed carpeting so the frame could be put together and that mattress have its home, and empty boxes. The mattress would stay clean inside its cover whatever the kids would do with it, so they got our blessing to have fun. Boy did they! And the empty boxes were in need of destruction by anybody's hands. So we grownups had our conversations and the kids had a blast!
Over the last three years, there have always been reasons for more boxes to show up. Needed unassembled roller chairs came in them. Folding tables for entertaining large family groupings came in them. So did the needed folding metal chairs, and shelving unit pieces, and... and.... Sometimes I look around me and wonder just what didn't need its own box? But there is a large open space in our living room, as distinct from the family room with the TV, where large boxes of all sorts wind up until kids have an excuse to visit. They can decorate them with markers or colored pencils, turn them into their own construction projects, hide in them, destroy them - all is fair aside from damaging each other and the real furniture, or houseplants. After a good visit, the pieces get fed through the recycling stream. Sometimes it's all at once, sometimes it takes a month or more with pickups only alternate weeks.
Yesterday I had one of those multiple-errands-in-the-cities days. With gas prices being what they are, it's nice to make a large loop since it's fifty miles just to get to the first one, and fifty back again. I consulted with my granddaughter and she was open to me popping in there and dropping off a few things for the family, as well as just getting together for a visit where they didn't have to drive 80 miles each way. Just like me, she had three kids, the oldest a daughter, the other two boys, the youngest of which will be three tomorrow, and which, when Steve and I were snowbirding, we delayed our return south for, to see and hold him in the hospital after birth.
I have a history with her middle son. When we'd get together in my youngest son's yard for backyard bonfires and weenie roasts followed by s'mores, there were always piles of dead branches from all the trees. Those were what we burned. This kid would always find a stick and go around hitting everything he could with it. If he got a little too close to me, I'd simply reach out and hold it, so he had to stop hitting whatever. He wasn't pleased, just giving me a long stare. For the next couple years he'd basically ignore or avoid me. But he's been coming over to our place with the family and joining in the play with the boxes. Last Thanksgiving he and his siblings turned a bunch of boxes into a cardboard version of a huge easy chair, among other transformations. He was especially impressed with that big 7-foot long furnace box this summer.
When I showed up at their house yesterday, apparently he'd heard I'd be bringing something for the family. He was very disappointed that I hadn't crammed my little hatchback car full of huge boxes! But at least he finally had good memories of me replacing the Mean-Old-Great-Grandma memories, since he talked to me, posed for pictures, and even demonstrated how he could turn cartwheels now (almost - shhhh) as good as his big sister could! He also made a point of showing me each new iteration of of a new Lego creation - before destroying it for the next idea - and announcing just what it was (for an old lady who just might not understand what he'd made.)
We're not ordering so many large things these days - thank goodness - but my youngest works for a company which gets a lot of things delivered in tri-wall cardboard. He's keeping his eye out for larger boxes and will drop some off when he visits, knowing kids will be using them. Of course his car is the same size as mine, so no 7 foot long boxes from him either. But yes, the pile is again growing.
Maybe next time I head over to their house for a visit I should ask how many fresh boxes they'd like? I won't - I think - be hauling plants that trip. There should be room.
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