"Little Qi and Julien! Come on, stop watching TV and get yourself ready for school please!" It is a Monday morning, the weather seems to be crisp in the late fall. Looking for my scarf and their hats in the closet I say to these two little kids:"Hurry up guys! no dilly dallying! Or you will be late " . "Ok! Grandma!" They answer me without turning around, that their eyes are still stuck on TV. Kids need disciplines, no matter in what era. Kids are always kids, greedy and selfish, that you can't just negotiate with them, sometimes you have to be firm and raise your voice a bit. Of course I would never beat my grandchildren for their naughty acts and mi*****ehaviours, because I knew what the feelings like of being beaten by my grandmother. As any direct trauma, I think spanking and beating with a bamboo stick work the same, that it could cause harmful life-long effects. So usually when Little Qi and her brother come to my place and act naughtily I choose to calm them down by talking with them, but never beat them up. So seeing them taking no action in response to what I just said, I just clap, and the image on the wall go black. Hearing no complaints, I get their school stuff ready.
Probably I am enigmatic--sometimes acting like a child, or even a weird and sometimes funny grandmother in the eyes of my grandchildren, but I am not a good babysitter-- taking care of kids is not my strength, however, I couldn't turn my daughter and son-in-law down. Sometimes I have to give them a hand when needed. Katie, my daughter, and her hu*****and Jason are out of town on a business trip to the North pole again this week. They both have been in charge of a big project related to taking care of the ozone layer over the Antarctic. Science is always a difficult subject to me. Sometimes at the dinner table, they have enthusiastic conversations talking about physics science fair projects and experiments and stuff in their school, and except some idioms like pick up the slack, can't pass the buck to someone else, etc. I have no idea what the further details are about.
My daughter, when she was small, I intended to communicate with her in Chinese, but it seemed that she was not much of a speaker in my mother tongue that until now the only Chinese words she could remember are: 上學，洗澡，吃飯，開門 and so on. However, as a CBC (Canadian born Chinese) her English is much better than mine. Since she started to go to school I knew that I had embarrassed her for so many times by using my Chinglish to confuse her friends and teachers. Until these days, every so often she corrects my pronunciations on some difficult words, in a constructive ways, of course, being devoid of hurting my fragile feelings. When she was small, when after a few attempts I still could not get some pronunciations right, she would lose her patience but yet in a soft voice which somewhat sounded to avoid hurting my emotions, and said:"Oh, never mind mama" like mother, like daughter. I knew it.
Time flies in spite of you having fun or not. Now Katie, who has become a tender young lady, a professor of physics at a university, is married and has her own children too. Along with, my English seems to have improved a lot through these years. Although my strong accents are still there, stubbornly staying with my tongue for so many years now and never want to go away, I still think "Well, who cares? if you want to stay, then stay" at least, they are not a barrier for me to "give orders" ...to my hu*****and and kids...in my house. To be honest, beside my accents, I admit that sometimes wearing my dentures bothers me a bit as well when I try to speak better both in Mandirin and English. However, that is not a big deal, is it? As a matter of fact, who cares about what I say? Am I right?
"Grandma! Grandma! Wake up! Go! go! No dilly dallying!" oh, that is Julien calling at me. I don't know why lately I could not help falling asleep without a warning. But, fortunately, I can remember I was getting my scarf and their hats in the closet, and then somehow I sat down on the love seat...with an effort I struggle to stand up from the couch thinking I have to get my robot fixed as soon as possible that without her assistance I am not sure that I will take good care of myself no mention these two sweeties. And, I have to go to see my family physician to find out what happened to me recently regarding the problem of suddenly falling asleep. I heave a long sigh, thinking that as one is getting old, strange things can happen to him/her body no matter how strong his/mind is. I have to admit that I am not young anymore like before that I could run 10 kilometers everyday to practice the marathon running. But now what? Beside being positive and fighting against the stress brought by depression I see no choice.
The two kids seem relieved to find that I am waking up from my dreams. In no time, I get the 7 year old Qi and 5 year old Julien in my solar powered car, and quickly I start the engine and make it roar into the cloudless sky flying toward their school.
Excerpted from Granny Diary【老蔓日記】, Oct 11, 2050
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