The holiday season is past, and this title might make you think I discovered a different way for Santa to bring his presents. After all, many of us don’t have chimneys. Maybe that could make a Christmas children’s book, but I have another story in mind. It has to do with a leaky roof and a grandson who loves dinosaurs.
Small leaks in the ceiling can be ignored by some of us of a certain age. Maybe the puddle came from Big Dog Finn drooling. (He never has but he could have started.) Maybe I didn’t get all the spots dry when I mopped. (This reason would work better if I had mopped since the last rain.) But when the ceiling above the puddles started to buckle I had to rethink the cause. Too many months (years?} after I came to the conclusion that indeed my roof needed to be repaired, a crew was up there, pounding away. It wasn’t their fault (I made sure to tell their boss that), but when I got back from a doctor’s appointment, chunks of the ceiling in my sunroom had fallen down.
I usually forget about the holes until someone comes to visit.
“An…..what happened?”
“Oh, it’s a long story.”
And then of course I tell it, as I love a good story.
Soon after it happened, my two-year-old grandson Tommy came over and was immediately drawn to the holes. He stared at them in utter fascination and then told his dad that a dinosaur did it. I thought that was quite reasonable as dinosaurs are tall. I then named this punching-holes-in-the-ceiling dinosaur “Dougie the Dino”. Tommy and I spent the next half hour going through the house, room by room, calling out “Dougie, are you there?”. He was a little scared and so I had to pick him up. (I love those little arms outstretched toward me.)
“You know you don’t have to pick him up every time he asks”, daughter Helen told me as she saw me grimacing (only slightly) from back pain. As if I didn’t want to pick him up. How soon will he be too old to want that?
He calls me “Haha”. The name was picked by his other grandmother when he couldn’t say grandma but could say Papa for Grandpa. It has caught on and may stay as it’s rather endearing. One problem is when Helen and Tommy are taking a walk and he sees an older woman from a distance. It’s rather embarrassing when he points and calls out, “Haha!” But really, that’s not my problem.
Because Tommy and I found no footprints in the house and Big Dog Finn showed no signs of an intruder, part of my storyline was that Dougie was nice, very sorry he created the holes, and promised not to come inside again.
All this has led to an ongoing game between the two of us. I have cut and pasted images of a green dinosaur onto photos around my yard, and they are now on Helen’s refrigerator. They aren’t always the most realistic but Tommy believes them. Helen has asked me at what age I plan to come clean to her son but I’ll worry about that later.
For Christmas I got him a see-through backpack full of bath toy dinosaurs. Helen has complained that it causes a meltdown at every bath time as he wants to take them wet and dripping out to the living room. But again, that’s not my problem. He got another toy dinosaur along with a letter. I’ll have to say that he lost interest in the letter after the first few words, but I picture him reading it years from now, thinking about how special grandparents are.
Here’s the Christmas letter from Dougie:
Dear TC (May I call you “TC”?),
Your Haha Ann is writing this for me, as my hands are too clumsy. I wanted to send you a New Year’s wish for 2025!
I asked your Haha to find a toy dinosaur that looks like me. What she found is not quite right, but she did the best she could. Think of me when you play with him. You can call him Dougie Junior or any other name you like.
I left a big footprint near the screened-in porch. It was an accident, but your Haha said it was O.K. and not to cover it up because you’d like to see it. You may not see me as I tend to be shy and stay hidden most of the time.
I want you to know that you are my favorite boy and I’m glad we’re friends. I hope you have a good year. I was two years old one hundred thirty-three million and twenty-eight years ago, but I still remember that it was a fun age.
Lots of love, Dougie
P.S. Your Haha Ann seems like a nice lady. She laughed when I told her I was 133,000,230 years old. She said she was glad there was someone older than her around the place.
Recently on the way to daycare, Tommy pointed to a burned down house on the side of the road and said, “Haha’s house?” Helen found this funnier than I did, but it all came together when he added, “Dougie do that?” What a sweet little boy to be worried about his grandma’s house!
It’s now been several months since the holes appeared, and I do hope that “Papa Wayne” can fix them. It will help if Tommy keeps reminding him. But it’s not so strange that it took a child to see the fascination and possibilities in those holes and turn them into something magical. And it took a grandmother, eager to have connections with her grandchild, to have the time and willingness to play along. Play is something children have always known how to do. And they long for others to join in, of any age, be it two or seventy-two or even 133,00,230 years old.