This week I have been video chatting with my granddaughter more than usual. We always enjoy it but B.Q. she went to day care during the morning hours and was only free near bedtime. Now that she and her parents are home all day every day things are more, shall we say, flexible. 

 

A few times they called during her bath. How sweet it is to blab about bubbles and splashing, and her stick-to-the-tile toys. Plus it is fun to see an Eiffel tower of her soapy hair, just like I did with her mother. 

 

But one evening she did not want a bath. Her mother thought Facetime might provide encouragement. Olly's pout reminded me of Shirley Temple, standing at the bottom of the grand staircase in her grandfather's Southern mansion, which was mostly stripped bare by the Civil War. She was a stubborn girl, tired of the fighting and she didn't want to go to bed. All she would wake up to the next day was more of the same. Missing her daddy. Her mother crying. Danger banging on the door.

 

The butler, Walker, found a round about way to coax her in the right direction. He tap danced. Soon the two of them were tippity toe tapping their troubles away. 

 

My own twins were tap dancing upstairs this week. They made music with their feet, in order to create a video for the dance class that is not doing much of it. It made me happy and I wasn't even in the same room. 

 

Many of us are tired. Of what, just fill in the blank. But watching a little girl with curls bouncing up the stairs with a kindly man, or hearing my own clicking their heels on the second floor, or seeing my granddaughter slip into the sudsy water was enough sweetness to get me through.