Rainbows

since we are writing memoirs for english I decided to post mine up on my blog, partially since i dont remember the URL for my other blog. LoL. enjoy.



Rainbow


Only recently I went out to visit my Grammy and Grampy (I have been calling them that for thirteen years and now it is the only thing that suites them, no mocking me, even my mom and Sean call them that) in Springfield, New Hampshire. It has become a tradition for me, every two years.

They live in a huge red house across from lake Kolelemook. The yard has a huge fire pit. Once the owners of the house had owned the only sand beach on the little heart shaped lake and sold it, for one dollar, to the public. Now it is a small public beach that all of the residence of Springfield come to. Its not a very large lake, small enough to kayak around in a little over an hour, but it is always changing. A lot of things have happened to me in that lake. My Grampy nearly drowned me, twice, I started learning to swim, I skinny-dipped (I was five) and I even learned how to dive off the dock. Most recently my grandparents acquired a large blue floating chair. Now my grandmother still thinks that I am a cute little girl, so she buys me pink frilly clothing. Grampy had taken Sean and Steve out for a game of bridge and it had suddenly become my job to entertain my two year old cousin Ruby, well my aunt, Grammy and mother were planning ‘girls day out’ so I went with the one thing that never lacks with two year olds.

Acting stupid.

It was a pretty dreary day so I didn’t have much company in the lake. I quickly drew the attention of my golden curled cousin as I dragged the huge inflatable chair five feet into the water, near the kiddy dock, and stood onto the dock. I should have known that with my lack of balance I would not have been able to stand on a large inflatable toy. Sometimes you never learn.

The rest of the day it was suddenly my job to entertain Ruby, because of one silly stunt that sent her into hundreds of giggles. I suddenly became “Siwwy Gwen.”

My Grammy planned a day in the neighboring town of New London. Now Springfield is long and very beautiful. It has no shops and a preschool/elementary school. The general store was shut down about a year ago and the day care has a small population of little kids. A town about the miles away has a Middle School and another one, farther away, has a High School. If you want to get the real aspect of small town you go to New Hampshire. Personally I love it there, but it isn’t a place to live in a bad economy and with a lack of jobs in the town.

One our little girls day out we drove ten minutes to a small thrift store to shop for little baby clothes. My Aunt Krista is pregnant with her second little girl and my mom had insisted on getting to help her. Everyone kept touching her stomach and Ruby had convinced herself that her baby sister would come out in a tutu and a princess crown, imagine the surprise when she starts Health Class in eight years. Part of my mind wished that Ruby would never have to grow up and could always see things as you do at that age. Little kids have a lot to teach us, sometimes more then we can teach them, because of how they see things. It’s a lot better then the way you begin to see them when you get older, well most of the time. Ruby would always run up and smile whenever she touched Aunt Krista stomach. “Momma hasa baby inner tummy.” She would announce proudly.

I, of course, wouldn’t touch her stomach. I thought it was a little weird to touch her stomach and personally I wouldn’t want everyone walking up and touching my stomach. I love my Aunt Krista, but since I never really see her, I politely declined the offer.

When we were in the thrift store everyone immediately started looking at clothing and since I had no idea what a little baby wears, I was put on baby sitter duty. Ruby loves to move. She grabbed three books off the shelf and we made it halfway through two of them before she ran off to step on a talking matt. Within ten minutes she had made all kinds of electrical toys talk and tried to poke her fingers into a dog cage. The real difficulties came when she decided she was a big girl.

Now I only baby sit two kids, and I never get paid. When we go to a BBQ at some of my moms friends house I always end up baby sitting two girls, Margo and Roo, but they are five and seven and just follow me like puppies and do whatever I do. Sometimes I tag along when my friend Anna baby sits but I have never really done it personally without other people constantly watching me. We have a few kids on our street and none of the parents ever ask for me to baby sit, so I have limited experience. Apparently little kids love me, but I have never noticed. I know that five year olds love me, but that is really it. The first time I met Ruby, she glared at me.

In a few seconds she had her shoes in a corner and was wearing one inch pink heels. Ruby never puts her shoes on. After switching three pairs of shoes she starting running around the store room.

“Ruby!” I called after her, doing the little trotting run thing you do well chasing little children. It makes it easy to stop and you wont run them over. “The shoe monster is going to catch you and make you put your own shoes back on.” Ruby, however, is a very smart kid and quickly learned it is very hard to chase someone when they are running in circles around a pole.

“No! No! No shoes!” she quickly demanded, tossing the shoes into a corner and smacking at my hand that carried her shoes. “I no like shoes. Where’s Grammy Kathy?” she asked. Little kids have ten second attention spans, if even.

“Looking at clothes.”

“That’s silly.” Whenever she said ‘that’s silly’ ,her very own signature line, she made this irresistible little face and had a small rolling noise in her throat.

“Yes it is silly, wanna go find her?” by now people in the store were looking at the thirteen year old girl that was struggling to get a very small child to put her shoes back on. I was sure plenty were wondering why I didn’t just grab her and force a screaming toddler into some Croc’s. Giggling she toddled off and found Grammy, pulling on her skirt until she was forced to look down.

“Why what is it, Miss Ruby James?” she asked in her elderly voice. Grammy always said Ruby’s first and middle name.

“I don’t got no shoes.” Grammy gave me a sympathetic glance and Ruby went running off. Somehow I managed to get her to put her shoes back on as she stood at a glass door.

“Where is mommy?” she asked.

“Outside. Right there, see?” Ruby followed the direction of my finger smooshed onto the glass and nodded. “Wanna go get her?” she nodded again. “Well then you gotta put your shoes back on, Ruby.” She let me pull her chubby little feet back into the purple shoes and she looked longingly out the window.

At the bookstore later I had to explain to her that you can’t eat a fabric banana and that throwing books is bad. When we went off to get some ice cream she ended up with sprinkles all over her face and looked at everyone in utter adoration. It is amazing how little kids are so innocent and see everyone as perfect and nice. I think it would be really great if we could all see the world in rainbows like toddlers. It seems like a perfect world to live in.

On the way home she passed out in the car. She had kicked off her shoes and was snuggling the toy dinosaur I had gotten her. Outside of the car it was raining in waves. I seriously mean waves, not a drizzle, the sky was almost sobbing all over us. Or maybe splashing water out of a tub or something.

When the rain finally stopped a rainbow peeked out from behind the mountains and Ruby looked from the large window in the dining room and pointed.

“It’s a wainbow.” She said, smiling. “Red, green, yellow, blue, purple, pink.” With each color she pointed to a small sliver in the rainbow. “They are all there! All of the colors.” From the corner Grammy let out one of her snorting laughs. “All of the colors are hugging each other!”

“Indeed they are.” I replied, smiling with her.