Sylvia's Journal

Our grandson has turned 8 today. I remember my birthday party when I turned 8; I believe I even have it recorded on double 8mm film. It’s an important event. He decided to celebrate it at his grandparents’ house. And so, we started the complicated affair of arranging for a birthday party with his other grandparents (he has 3 sets), two cousins, two aunties and uncles – staggered appearances, and 6 feet apart. It’s a complicated affair. When you think you have it figured out in the abstract, implementing the great ideas with surgical cleanliness is another thing altogether. We are learning as we go. We are stricter than maybe necessary, but we rather not take any risks, especially since one of the little cousins has spent many weeks of her four years in the hospital to manage a dangerous congenital health problem.

The grandkids arrived last night with their parents. We already have had a weekend together so that was easy as this did not require surgical cleanliness.

More challenging was my morning routine of meditation and stationary biking. As usual, I got up at about 5:30AM, which I have been doing most of the time for the last week because that is already 12:30PM in Madagascar. The birthday boy was also awake at that time (and then woke his sister), so thinking I could do my morning routine quietly was sunk.

I decided that we may as well meditate together. I showed the 4 year old some of Andy’s (Headspace) animations about stilling the mind, which she liked a lot. And then I sat in my meditation chair while Faro laid down on the yoga mat and Saffi snuggled under my arm. I am well advanced in my meditation training, so I took this new arrangement in stride. To my great surprise and delight, we all did meditate, Faro was still the entire 10 minutes; Saffi couldn’t help poking me from time to time, but she eventually got the idea.

The biking was a little more challenging with two kids watching as I exerted myself, and Faro kept talking about things (Minecraft) I don’t understand anything about. My not understanding didn’t seem to matter and he continued chattering about the intricacies of Minecraft (‘he, Oma, did you know this that you can’t get to…?”). 

Once I was done, showered and dressed, I was still the only adult awake while Faro was eyeing his decorated birthday table and the presents stacked on top of each other. It was hard for him to wait. I asked him about the famous (but also now debunked) marshmallow test that he did when he was younger. I am not sure he remembered. When I asked him whether he ate the marshmallow when the experiment leader left the room or waited for his/her return to get a second marshmallow, he said he ate it. I could have expected that answer. Why would I assume a kid would say he had not; marshmallows are for eating after all. 

The kids then discovered Alexa which has crept into our house as a freebie addition to a new wireless system. Our daughters disapprove mightily about this intrusion into our privacy, but we are kind of liking it, and the grandkids loved it. Alexa was kept very busy with requests for lame jokes (Alexa has much more patience than we do). Faro discovered he could get her to sing happy birthday (in the absence of the parents who were still sleeping – a nice bonus so I didn’t have to sing it by myself). 

He tested Alexa about the capital cities of countries in Africa (yes, Alexa knew about Antananarivo). And then they discovered you could get Alexa to make dog or cat sounds (do you want a spooky dog sound, a whiny dog sound, a sad dog sound or random?). Saffi learned the word ‘random’ and soon all sorts of dogs were barking, with an occasional meow. Alexa even knew some songs that had dogs barking the tune. What fun.

I was a little concerned when they asked for something and Alexa answered with ‘that requires an upgrade to premium. Would you like me to arrange that for you?” I had to shut Alexa up and gave the kids a lecture about never saying yes to a robot, as it is not a real person but an information gathering and marketing machine –  a hard concept to teach to trusting kids. These kids will grow up with robots, but for now, I don’t want to see a whole pile of Amazon prime boxes on my doorsteps of kids who ordered birthday presents for themselves, egged on by Alexa. We’ll see.