2015 Tuesday -- Great-Grandson Tristan

This has been a full Tuesday with our 8-year-old Tristan. Now that the day has ended, I feel that it has been a good day with him.

Our daughter Dede, his great-aunt, brought him here to Cayucos; they arrived last Friday morning after leaving from Corona at about 4:30 to drive the 4 hours here.

It's taken us about five days to figure out a routine and to realize that we must have a plan for the day if the day is to go smoothly. With four personalities here, having a "hang loose" schedule does not work.

So today Tristan and Dede walked to the beach mid-morning. Mr. Fun & I loaded the 3 pooches in the car and went to meet them on the sand. We spent an ample amount of time at the shore. We walked over to the tide pools, walked the pups on the shoreline, and the three of us adults, waited and watched for a long while as Tristan played at the beach playground.

Then, I announced that it was time for lunch and we all headed home for some grub (lunch). The grown-ups had some soup and Tristan enjoyed a grill cheese sandwich that aunt Dede cooked for him. Then it was time for everyone to just "chill" for awhile.

It was obvious that Tristan does not "chill," so I mentioned that he and I could work on one of his jigsaw puzzles. It was a 100 piece puzzle. I suggested that he look for the 4 corners and all the straight edge pieces. At first he did not quite get the concept of doing that, but gradually I think he grasped it.

When we completed the puzzle, he announced that he had another we could also do. Oh boy! Then when we completed that he suggested that we play a game of Scrabble.

Well, I've never thought of myself as good at Scrabble, so I was discouraging the idea until I realized he really wanted to play the game. He tried to explain the rules to me; finally I read the rules aloud to us. Then we each grabbed seven letters and started to play. Quickly I was ahead of him in points, so I stopped to ask,

"Do you have to win to have a good time?"

He looked at me and said adamantly in his 8-year-old voice,

"I've never won this game!"

My instant thought was,

"Crap!"

I was already many points ahead of him. Well, the long and the short of it is I won when he announced,

"Whoever gets to 100 points first wins!"

I was already past 100. So the game was over and it was my turn for some "time out" and Tristan got occupied doing something, maybe playing Legos or helping aunt Dede do something.

I fixed taco salad for dinner and we ate at 6:00 so that we would have ample time to go to the shoreline to walk and to watch the sunset and the waves. We put the pups in the backseat of the car and the two of us got in the front and Aunt Dede wanted to walk to the shore.

Sundown was spectacular, and Tristan was delighted with the large number of sand dollars he collected.

When the sunset show was over, we put the pups back in the car for the short drive back to the house and aunt Dede and Tristan walked all the way back from 21st Street (we live between 4th and 5th Streets). Once we were all home Great-Grandpa Fun made popcorn for everyone.

This has been an excellent Tuesday.
Rosie (& Mr. Fun), aka

P.S. He will remember these days all his life.
I still remember getting tar on my feet as a small child on the sand in Carlsbad at Grammie and Grandpa's place.
Grandpa kept a can of turpentine in the car with a cloth to use on our feet. Funny the things we remember.