Holding hands

My granddaughter lets me know in no uncertain terms that she is too old to be picked up. “No, Pampah!” she asserts, using my temporary (but nonetheless cherished) name which will be mine until she can pronounce her “Grs”. At eighteen months, after all, a young lady should not suffer the indignity of being carried about when she is still exhilarated by her daily more adequate and daring mobility skills.

we’re going down the garden to feed the ducks at the river. Winnie the Pooh, clutched to her chest, also looks as though he would rather not be picked up right now, and is clearly aghast at the prospect of the terrace we are about to descend. Just as we start downhill, a very small hand steals into mine “which just happened to be hanging loose nearby. Together the three of us make it safely down, and the hand disengages and we toddle on to the water’s edge.

Here again, I am not allowed to feed the ducks (a generic word so far which applies to all winged creatures including, no doubt, the very angels of God, although she is very clear on helicopters). She can feed ducks very well by herself thank you! A group of presumably malnourished waterfowl assemble in great (and at times almost intimidating) numbers, attracted by the young princess scattering breadcrumbs.

A rather fierce looking coot steams purposefully towards us. An uncertain hand reaches across to me: “Pampah?” I don’t have to be any more reassuring than just to remain sitting there, for it is soon clear that the territorial coot plans only to chase off all of these non-coot interlopers. The ducks scatter splashingly, which elicits a delighted giggle which seems to say “Do that again!”

–All finished!” No more breadcrumbs. We stand up, Winnie is unceremoniously picked up by the left foot, and we head back to the terrace. Her Ladyship has never managed the uphill climb by herself, and out of habit I reach down. “No, Pampah!” she says, and heads for the hills.

In the past she has adopted the (I suppose) logical habit of holding her body perpendicular to the ground, and so on the terrace has tended to find herself leaning backward at an unsustainable angle of 45” “and definitely in need of rescuing. Her parents join me at the scene.

But today she is accommodating the angle and remaining upright by herself. It’s a tough climb, more than two metres up, and she is concentrating hard, Winnie resigned to whatever fate may befall. A determined grunt, then another, a veritable basket of adult hands at the ready, encouraging ... and she reaches the top by herself!

The triumph of Sir Edmund Hilary on the summit of Everest came a poor second as two baby arms were flung into the air, an ear-to-ear smile crowning the whole occasion. Of course we all picked her up and passed her around in celebration. As I held her, my son said to her: “Kiss Pampah.” She was not, it seemed, too old to be kissed. Nor too young to be generous. She stretched out her arm to me ... “Kiss Winnie,” she commanded.

Winnie was duly kissed.

B.G.

This feature was first published in Relational Child and Youth Care Practice 17, 1. p.22