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Travelling Oma

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I am driving to Brookings, SD tomorrow for a week to look after my grandson while his parents work and the elementary schools haven’t yet opened and his usual child care center is closed for the week. Husband is staying home to look after the garden and the dog. He will meet us in Detroit Lakes for Labor Day weekend at a lake cabin we have rented.

I bought a crate of peaches yesterday to bring along. The local fruit man had some lovely looking freestone peaches from Utah, of all places, He usually has Washington peaches this time of year, but the orchard he goes to was busy with the apple harvest. Grandson loves to cook so we will make peach pie fillings to freeze and maybe make peach sorbet or ice cream. His parents have requested peach crisp. I am also bringing pesto and home canned tomato puree. We shall eat well.

In a continuing effort to declutter our home I am bringing all the children’s books we have to our grandson. These are books that our son and daughter had as children. Grandson and I can sort through and keep the ones he likes and discard the others. I also expect I will do leggo construction and we will visit the public library and the wonderful local children’s museum. It will be a nice break for me. I will even have a terrier to care for since Son and DIL have a Westie.

I have very fond memories of the times I spent with my grandparents on their farms, and I want my grandson to have some fond memories of us, too. I am glad Husband can meet us at the lake next week.

What activities would you plan for a week with a 6 year old boy and a terrier? What are some favorite memories of your grandparents or older relatives? Ever had peaches from Utah?

30 thoughts on “Travelling Oma”

  2. Never tried Utah peaches. DIdn’t know they grew them. I remember a family reunion with my dad’s side up on Lake Kabetogama. Grandma and her sister loved to get together and laugh. Grandma had the most infectious laugh, so once you got her started, everyone couldn’t not laugh.

    Playing catch with Grandpa Norbury. He always threw underhand for some reason.

    Christmas at my mom’s parents, eating lutefisk, creamed peas and potatoes, and a plum pudding sort of cake with viscous, purpley sauce.

    I did a lot of chores for my mom’s folks. Lawn mowing, helping in their huge garden, painting inside and out. Always got lunch from Grandma–strictly meat and potatoes, but also fresh fruits and veggies from the garden. Mmmmmm!

    Asking me for advice on how to entertain a six-year-old boy and a dog is like asking Donald Trump to help me prepare my speech for the state speech tournament.

    (Seriously, if the boy is at all athletic, play catch or kick a soccer ball or football around, or go to a playground with climbing apparatus, swings, etc. And bring a tennis ball to play fetch with the dog.)

    Chris in Owatonna

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    1. He is a soccer player and a swimmer. In many ways he takes after my father, who was athletic, loved to cook and read, loved to build and tinker, and was somewhat of a rascal. Grandson is all those things.

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  4. Rise and Shine Baboons,

    My Grandpa and I spent all kinds of time looking for four leaf clovers. I suggest that. I wrote a post about this:

    https://trailbaboon.com/?s=Four+leaf+clover

    It was a great activity and I still look for these and think of him often. He and my dad spent time watching baseball games as well, with me seated on his lap while I sucked my thumb. His wife died in 1956 of colon cancer so I only have 1 memory of her. However, her memory was kept alive by her sisters and family, as well as by my parents because she was so beloved.

    Mom’s mother was a terrific grandmother. She instructed me on housekeeping–cleaning, cooking, and making egg coffee. They visited our house, and we must have visted there at least once per month. I think one of the few times my mother felt safe was with her mother. Grandpa was a smelly farmer with rough edges, so I gave him wide berth.

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  5. I don’t have a lot of experiences with 6 year olds, especially boys. There’s a park here with a playground. There are swings and slides and all kinds of things to climb around on. I would certainly take him there. I’d also take him about 50 yards away to where there is a small, shallow pond teeming with turtles, frogs, a green heron, a great blue heron, and ducks. We could look for frogs (I specialize in finding and catching frogs) or turtles, look at flowers, and walk to a nearby tunnel that goes under a road. If he brings a bike, there are great trails all around me here so we could go for short bike rides. I would read with him too.

    When my oldest nephew was about 6 years old we snuggled together on the couch one Christmas. I was crocheting something and he was fascinated. He asked if he could try it. My brother was nowhere in sight, so I handed him the yarn and the hook and showed him how to pull the yarn through a loop. He took it and was trying really hard, concentrating on it until he got it. Unfortunately, my brother came in, saw what was going on, and exclaimed, “What are you DOING? NO NO NO!” I knew he could be rather uptight, but really? My poor nephew sprang away from me and we never got a moment like that again.

    My maternal grandma laughed like a bowl of jelly. She would try to hold it in, and sit there bouncing and jiggling, and giggling inside. That’s the way I remember her. She was a mischievous scamp, always playing a prank. She had a big garden and made incredible rhubarb meringue pies. She grew corn. Grandpa would go fishing and catch lots of panfish and grill-fry them – I’m not sure how but they were incredible. We’d have that with sweet corn out of their garden and pie. There were also green beans which I was required to eat before I could have pie.

    I’ve never had peaches from Utah. I got some white peaches at the Co-op recently and they were wonderful.

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      1. Thanks! Our high school football captain, I’ll just call him Johnny B Mean, was actually the person who taught me how to crochet. I did tell my brother that but he didn’t want to hear it.

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        1. When I was a grad student in Winnipeg we had a very upset Greek dad bring his 7 year old son to our clinic worried that the boy was Gay because he wanted to help his mom in the kitchen and once wore an apron while he was cooking.

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  6. Do the parents have bikes you could use? Biking with a 6-year-old can be fun if you have a safe enough road.
    And he might still be into fort making on a rainy day (think card table…) Or tenting in the back yard? Badminton?

    I stayed with my maternal grandma for almost a week when my sister was born, when I was 4. I have the little journal she kept – I helped her in the garden, and we walked out to my aunt’s and I played with my cousin. I did get a bee sting and she put some mud on it, I think, and we got to go to a movies (Snow White) that night.

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    2. We just had some peaches off a tree at my daughter’s house here in the twin cities. She planted the tree two years ago. The peaches are on the small side-maybe 2 1/2 inches in diameter, but as sweet and juicy as any in the store. They have harvested about 250, if you include the ones they removed so as to not overload the branches.

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  9. I was intrigued by the mechanics and thought processes of needlework. My mother did everything but knitting. She did needlework for hours in the evening. She taught me how to embroider, crochet, and hook rugs. I only wanted to learn the mechanics and processes and quit. No idea what my father thought of this, I was about 10.

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