I loved reading the comments about being a grandparent. Watching childhood progress through your grandkids is a delight. When I was a kid, I just remember summer being one wonderful day after another. If you asked me what I did all day long, I would answer: "Nothing." I just knew I had a great day.

Well, it turns out that answer is still given to Parents by kids to this day. Here is proof, a day with my grandchildren.

Author’s Note: This is based on true events.

*****

“Did you know the World Record for stacking M&M’s is …five?”

“Five?!”

“Five?”

The two little tykes had throttled up their curiosity. In the background, Mom was getting ready for work and listening with a smile. Pop Pop continued with his story of the guy who set the Guinness World Record for stacking M&M’s. The previous World Record was…three. During the Pandemic a highly educated Civil Engineer got bored. So he found out that someone had stacked three M&M’s and had the World Record.

It took that Civil Engineer a year, but he smashed the old record by two M&Ms. Pop Pop watched with a growing smile as the grandkids leaned in on their elbows to hear the story. Then they burst into excited babble.

“Did you ever stack M&Ms Pop Pop?”

“No. It never even dawned on me to try.”

“I wish we could try. I bet we could be the World Record Holders.”

His sister chimed in:

“I bet we could at least get two of them stacked up. That should be easy.”

Their energy paused for just a minute - no, more like just a second.

“If we had M&M’s we could try right now!”

Pop Pop’s Daughter hid a smile. She knew her Dad. She knew he wouldn’t have brought the subject up…and not bring any M&M’s to experiment with. Or to break the World Record.

“Well, look in my back pack.”

The two kids leaped up from the Kitchen table, raced to the couch where Pop Pop’s backpack was. Unzipped it…and shouted in glee.

“Two big bags of M&M’s! One for me, one for my sister.”

The next half hour was filled with laughter and quiet moments of concentration. It turns out that stacking M&M’s is difficult. Really difficult. But Penny got two stacked right off the back. Lincoln and I did too, but only after a gazillion attempts. Then Penny started using her child’s creativity. She started making a pyramid out of M&M’s.

She got so that if she made the base big enough, she could stack the M&M’s four high. We copied her efforts. Alas, my M&M’s kept sticking to my old wrinkled fingers. I don’t have fine motor skills to begin with, my penmanship sucks. And, as my Father used to say: “Kevin can’t make a straight line with a ruler." Sadly, that is still true.

One of the delights of working with M&M’s though is that you can eat the ones that don’t stack well. I told the kids that any M&M that fell off the stack three times, was disqualified and therefore eligible for a snack. Soon many of the M&M’s found themselves disqualified after just a single attempt at stacking. Only Penny made it to four, using her pyramid method. Lincoln and I both managed to stack just two.

“No wonder it took him a year to stack five of them. I bet he had to eat a lot of M&M’s.”

That led to a quick conversation wondering if you only ate M&Ms …could you survive.

“Maybe, but it wouldn’t be healthy. No vegetables!”

The other grandchild chirped in his two cents:

“And no pasta with olive oil either. And no fish. I like Mahi Mahi and Spring Mackerel the best.”

“Pop Pop, what’s your favorite fish?”

“Hmmm…I don’t really like fish. I only eat Tuna, and Cod. Cod is what they make most fish sticks out of.”

“Oh. I like fish sticks too.”

That is when the Post War 1950’s Childhood memories of mine kicked in.

“When I was your age, my Mother used to make all of us take a teaspoon of Cod Liver Oil each day before we went to school.“

Two faces stared at me.

“What is Cod Liver Oil?”

That led to an internet search. I was surprised to find out that “Fish Oil” is a booming supplement nowadays. We tried to find pure liquid Cod Liver Oil…since most of the fish oils came in capsule form. I told them that taking a fish oil capsule is nothing like the experience of tasting a tea spoon of pure Cod Liver Oil. We talked about ordering both kinds (capsules and liquid forms) from Amazon. But we would have to wait until Mommy got home from work to get permission.

We talked about the difference between “Marketing” and “Science.” For example, one of the “purified fish oil” products claimed that their oil had no taste or aftertaste. And it promised: “No fishy burps!” Well, that led to a hilarious few minutes of explanation and then made up fish burps. All of us “swimming” around the kitchen and stopping to “fish burp.” Plenty of “excuse me”, “so sorry” and “Oh, my, I don’t know where that came from… “. Tons of laughter…then a quick Google Check to see if fish burp.

Well, whales and dolphins do, and some amphibians “burp” bubbles of air to nurture their young. That led to yet another Pop Pop story. About the time I was swimming in a fjord in Norway when a small whale came near the ladder to climb out of the water. It blew out a big breath and covered me with whale snot. It smelled horrible.

Kids being kids, they decided to jump in the above ground pool in their backyard. It is only about three feet deep, and twenty feet across, but it was their ocean. They decided to become whales, and blow spouts while coming up out of the water. Then they fish burped under water while wearing their snorkel gear. Then they tried to hold their breath and lay on the bottom of the pool like Flounders lay in the sand. It was decided that Flounder was tasty but had too many bones for them to include them on their favorite fish menu.

That led to a story about how I used to imitate a dolphin when I was their age. I explained how I used to imitate dolphins by launching my body off from the bottom of the pool. Then wiggling my way backwards until I fell back under the water (my artificial hips don’t let me demonstrate how - so words and gestures had to suffice). Let me tell you, they pushed their tiny bodies high into the air, wiggled for a bit, and made high pitched squeaking sounds - that probably only Dolphins and dogs could hear. Then they splashed backwards, crashing back under water. Sometimes blasting back to the surface snorting water out of their noses and wiping water out of their eyes.

Next was a quick Google search of Spring board diving. I used to dive off of a one meter board, and a three meter board. I could do basic dives and tricks. Well, they have a fence right up against the side of the pool. So they started jumping and spinning into the water. No dives though. I told them how dangerous diving into shallow water can be. So they jumped…a lot.

Then they made a game out of it. Jumping onto a six foot yellow submarine they had inflated just a few days ago. If you jumped onto the float without tipping it over and falling in the water, you got a point. If you landed on it, but fell off, well, you only got half a point. First one to twenty points wins. Final Score?

Penny: 10 and 1/2. Lincoln : 20 and 1/2. Pop Pop…soaked by spray and splashing as the Official Score Keeper.

An hour in the pool, ten minutes to dry in the sun, and off we went to the Park. They had scooters and pushed themselves along at high speed. I had only my tennis shoes. So they circled back for me about every hundred feet. At the park we went looking for turtles, crawfish, salamanders by the creek. Always careful to keep an eye out for gators or snakes. No luck.

Oh…ah…but we found a climbing tree! They scrambled up like so many Monkey’s or Mountain sheep... Just as sure footed by making hand holds and bracing their feet in-between limbs. After they climbed down, it was time to swing on the swing set. Slide on the sliding board, and climb the monkey bars. After an hour of that, they were hungry.

We stopped at the local Quick Stop to buy popsicles. I carried both their scooters so they would have their hands free to eat their multi-colored popsicles. We had a serious discussion about whether popsicles or regular scoops of ice cream were the better treat. The conclusion was they were both delightful. But Ice cream was better in a bowl…unless you had a cone!

Back home to have Penny read a book to me. Lincoln would chirp up every now again when she read his favorite passages.

“Read that again Penny!”

She would. He would then act out what she read. It was a fun half hour.

Then it was out to the back yard to kick a ball around. I was the Universal Goal Keeper… and they both scored on me at will. Then we tried kicking the ball in the air. I would toss it to them in the air, and they would try and kick it before it hit the ground. After a while, they were kicking it more than they were missing it. It was fun but they both broke a sweat. So off to the pool again.

This time they just played and played. Finally their Dad came home from work. He hopped right in the pool with them. Within moments kids were being flung into the air with glee. Landing with big splashes. Laughter and screams of joy permeated the air. In a quiet moment where they all just sort of hung on the side of the pool to relax, their Dad asked them what they did today?

They both answered at the same time:

“Nothing.”