Mr. Peanut Butter Face

“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”

― J.R.R. Tolkien

Alright. Go ahead. Have lunch with your very young toddler grandchild and see if you don’t break out in song.  I dare  you.  Lunch time, dinner time, any time that food is involved, cheer and song are not far behind. 

When I finally (!) got to recording Nana’s Greatest Hits with my talented collaborator, Melissa Phillippe, it was a song about food that came first.  This wasn’t the first song I wrote , but it happens to be a favorite.  An MP3 of our recorded session is coming soon.  Hope you enjoy it.

A very young child eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in his high chair is one of the great experiences open to a grandparent.  Do not miss it.  Serve up the goods and stand back and watch.  Pretty soon you’ll be singing…  (Note: Change gender lyric as you will.)

Hey Mister Peanut Butter Face

You’ve got your lunch all over the place

And it looks as good as I bet it tastes

Mr. Peanut Butter Face

            Mr. Peanut Butter

            Bet you want another

            Mr. Peanut Butter Face

            Mr. Peanut Butter

            Grinnin’ at your mother

Mr. Peanut Butter Face

Hey little Jelly Fingers Guy

You look pretty happy and I think I know why

‘Cause the stuff in your sandwich  makes a sparkle in your eye

Little Jelly Fingers Guy

Little Jelly Fingers

Helps the flavor linger

Little Jelly Fingers Guy

Little Jelly Fingers

I’m a Jelly Singer

Little Jelly Fingers Guy

(FAST)

Mr. Peanut Butter Face, Mr. Peanut Butter Face, Mr. Peanut Butter Face!!

Longing for Grandchildren

“There is a space between one’s imagination and one’s attainment

that may only be traversed by longing.” ― Khalil Gibran

Babies and young children were ever present in our big Irish Catholic family.  Girlhood summers in the midwest, spent with my oldest brother Jack and his wife Sue, were all about babies.  At nine or ten, I thought learning to change diapers was part of the fun.  Jack and Sue managed to provide me with a new niece or nephew every year or so for quite a while there.  And each one welcome; each one a treasure.

First, I longed to be a mom

I grew up longing to be a mom and when Tom and Tracey arrived, I was very much fulfilled.  I loved being a mom.  My favorite sport:  Baby Watching.   Later, I loved being a teacher of young children.  By the time I discovered Dr. Maria Montessori’s best advice,  “Let the child be the teacher,” that principle was already resonant in my being.  Attentive Baby Watching is at the heart of all good early childhood education. Dr. Montessori’s great wisdom informed so much more about life both in the classroom and out. 

No wonder in my later life I developed this longing for grandchildren. As soon as my two off spring were happily married to lovely, loving potential parents, I think my imagination started churning. 

Tracey and Bob, started off with two kittens – Buddy and Jim – to see if their parenting styles were robust and compatible.  They were.  And, Tom had raised my first granddog from a puppy, providing nourishment and care for Dusty into her old age.  He and Maura, the youngest of eleven, would be great parents.  So get busy, already!

Ok, while I was waiting (not very) patiently, I still needed a kid.

Paul and Sherrie Corbett came through for me...

Along came Alex:  A bouncing baby boy born to the Corbetts, my special friends at the Center for Spiritual Living.  I went to see Sherrie, Paul and Alex in the hospital and held that sweet little guy in my arms. Alex had two very happy sets of grandparents, but I took advantage of being closer geographically and loved knowing Alex in his earliest years. Let’s say I was his spiritual grandmother…

After Bob and Tracey’s son, Ethan, was born, Alex showed him the ropes of being a kid one day.  Alex was five and Ethan still under a year and crawling when the Corbetts came for a visit.  Alex wanted Ethan to come over to him and he gestured energetically with his hand.  Ethan didn’t seem to understand, so Alex got right down close to him and said very patiently (waving his hand toward himself), “This means come here.” 

Alex Corbett, thank you for helping me through my great longing for grandchildren!  You are the best.

Nana’s Greatest Hits

This blog was originally inspired by a set of songs that I wrote some years ago for my grandchildren, Ethan and Taylor. I have always thought that sharing these songs might help other grandparents approach that sweetest of grandparental pursuits – singing with little ones.  This blog makes it relatively easy to share these tunes; maybe some day there’ll be a collection, but for now, you’ll get them one-at-a-time, so come back often. 

I will also include stories of grandparenting and adventures with my grandkids as well as any tales I can get from friends.  More grandparents are being made every day!  It does seem that after saying “Hi, Kathleen” the next thing so many friends do is whip out their cell phones and show me the latest, cutest antic of their darlings. 

Joy simply sings through this new role of grandparent.

With all the adoration, grandparenting does come with some additional obligation.  Though this wasn’t at the top of my reasons for singing, more recent research has shown the link between music and brain development.  So, if you want to help your grandchildren get smarter, SING!

“When young children listen to familiar words in songs, the neural transmitters in their brains are firing away, and their brains are building connections to the sounds they are hearing and the words they are singing. Singing songs and reciting poems and rhymes with children helps them develop early literacy skills.”  – Jackie Silbert, “The Importance of Music for Children”

To settle any performance anxiety, I want to emphasize this – no musical background nor talent is required.  Besides great willingness, my “talent” consists of a fair rhythmic sense gained from tap dancing from a very early age.  I have little memory pre-tap and a sideline of my connection with dance is that I memorized most of the musicals of the 30’s and 40’s.  Name a song, I can pipe out some part or all of the lyrics.  But I digress.

Funny Rhymes and Slightly Familiar Tunes

Though, come to think of it, that may be why funny rhymes and slightly familiar tunes wound up in my songs.  I did not sit at a piano and pound out the melodies for Nana’s Greatest Hits.  They initially came to me “whole, perfect and complete” (well almost) on Highway 101. They came during a two hour, bi-monthly commute Santa Rosa to San Jose to teach a class. My ride was an old Datsun with no working radio.   Driving along, thinking about my most recent observations of what Ethan or Taylor were up to, well, the songs seemed to create themselves.

I offer Nana’s Greatest Hits to grandparents everywhere.  And also, urge you to just sing what happened in your day. Or favorite nursery rhymes you remember. It will take you back to happy days of your childhood, I bet.  And then, I recommend you check out Ella Jenkins, Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, and just keep going.  These were the songs I sang to my children and they are very smart.

The STREETS of San Francisco

My second grandchild was born three years after Ethan and has shown me a whole new level of grandeur.  A granddaughter!

My son, Tom Kearney and the lovely Maura announced their pregnancy and soon after started responding to the oft-repeated and occasionally annoying question:  “What are you going to name the baby?”  Their response usually gave people (including me) some pause for thought.  They said that a good name for a boy OR a girl should honor San Francisco, the city of birth in a special way.  “We’ve decide to name the baby Taylor Mason Kearney,” Tom said (with a smirk any mother could interpret).  “Then the hip-hop name could be Streets. “

 Yeah, right -- the Streets of San Francisco.

Tracey and I were on the team for Maura’s delivery and were living in Santa Rosa.  We’d gotten news bulletins all day about them going to the hospital, going home, and the last call from Tom was well into the December evening.  He conveyed that there was no real rush, we could go back to bed and come in the morning.  Which we did until Tracey got an intuitive flash.  She got me back out of bed and we had clear sailing down the 101.  We arrived at Kaiser in S.F. just about the time Maura requested her epidural.  With seven sisters, many who had been through delivery more than once, she had gotten the lowdown on the preferred medications.

Tom had brought a catchers mitt to help with the delivery, to catch the baby if necessary.  He did his best to keep us and the hospital staff amused; Maura, not so much.  

From our arrival on, Maura was a champ, with apparent ease delivering her baby girl in pretty quick fashion, Tom could have lent the catcher’s mitt to the doctor who was surprised by the rapid progression of events that culminated in our gorgeous, blue eyed wonder – Taylor Mason Kearney.  It was clear in a minute – this IS Taylor. 

My blissed out state reminded me about how lucky I was to be present with Tom and Maura at thler delivery time. And how glad I was that Tracey was tuned in to her sister-in-law.  We were honored to be included at this deeply personal and important time.  It created a deeper bond with Maura and a forever bond with Taylor my GRANDdaughter.