Important Instructions

Instructions for Satchel ~ Email correspondence regarding my grandson at age 4; Brooke is my daughter-in-law, his mother:

(from me) Hi Brooke, I’m leaving today for Carmel and then Southern California and returning this weekend, so I won’t be here to keep my usual date with Satchel on Thursday. Here’s the schedule for whoever covers:

1. Pick him up at pre-school. Sign him out, and don’t forget his coat, shoes, socks, pants, shirt, lunchbox, and any art he did that day.
2. Ask if he has any good ideas for the afternoon.
3. He likes to go to the ice cream store by the park. He’ll want a rainbow sherbet, but get it in a big cone so it doesn’t make a mess or fall out. Not the huge scoop, he can’t eat it all.
4. His next good idea will be the park. First the swings, and he likes to be pushed high. Whoever is pushing him might whisper him a secret, like: “You make my heart happy, and that’s just between the two of us.” He’ll whisper back: “Okay, I won’t tell anyone, except Poppy, and Mama, and Busha, and Gumpy, and Ikie, and Bob, and Uncle Jon.” He’s not so good with secrets.
5. Satchel likes the slides, and my fill-in has to hide and scare him as he comes down. If there’s a lot of electricity in the air, they can shock each other and scream.
6. Then he likes to lie face up in the sand and make sand angels.
7. After the park he’ll want to go to their house and make rivers in the back yard and read books. He likes the same book read three times.
8. He gets hungry, so it’s good to feed him before returning him to his house by 6:00. Satchel makes the best eggs (they have to stand close to him when he’s at the stove), and likes the chicken sausages from Sonoma Market. Sometimes he has a good idea and likes to go for pizza: Mary’s or the Red Grape are his personal favorites. (I like a four-year-old that has a personal favorite in restaurants.) Both have children’s menus with crayons and tic-tac-toe. He plays very well and wins most every time. If they win, he won’t play any more and will keep his head down and color in the other games on the menu. He’ll also ask for a Sprite but is only allowed one treat a day (too much sugar for his teeth, you know), and if he’s already had an ice cream, he’ll understand that he can’t and be okay with water.
9. On the way home he’ll want to listen to the CD with all the kids singing. Oh, and he fixes his own seat belt in the car.

That’s the drill. Occasionally we do other things, but this is pretty much how he likes the day to go.

p.s. Sometimes he has a great idea about visiting the toy store. He’ll offer to go in and just look around, but I have the great idea that we buy one small thing in the plastic dinosaur or farm animal section. He has lots of toys at home but he says they’re getting rather old, so he could use a new one on occasion.

Love, and I’ll see him next week, Oma

Response from his mother: “When I told Satchel that you would be away, he wasn’t very happy. When I promised that I would take him for rainbow sherbet in your stead, he was slightly happier. Then he got pushy and asked for the park and the toy store and pizza. I’m screwed. Travel safe. We’ll talk when you get home. Love, Brooke”
June 4, 2007

© 2007. Catherine Sevenau.
All rights reserved.