The other day my kids asked me if I knew what “google” meant. Before I could respond, “a search engine?” I sensed from their devious tone they were asking in a way that implied they already knew the answer and were going to follow, “do you know what google means?” with, “oh yeah, what?” as they clearly thought they knew something I wasn’t yet privy to. This was a bold (and accurate) assumption given I spent several hours daily googling things from “how to jazz up a boring chicken breast recipe” to “will Jen ever find true love?” and now of course, “dear google, what is the definition of google?”
They explained google was the biggest number. Of course I wanted to do a little further googling into the matter but for five and eight years old, their interpretation was surprisingly accurate. Google (according to google) is a number with 100 zeros after it.
We had a great Sunday afternoon at my Grandma’s 90th birthday party with about 90 of her closest friends and family members.
One of the many ways we paid tribute to her in addition to walls of photos, albums, memory books and small (almost microscopic) tuna, egg salad and salmon crust less sandwiches, we wrote stories of our fondest memories of our Grandma while the great grandchildren coloured foam cut-outs that we laced with purple ribbon and draped around a table. Some were placed around tables like coasters each with a message from one of the kids dedicated to their great Grandma.
I noticed my niece wrote, “You put the GREAT in Grandma!” on a cut-out shaped like a star. Another was a picture of Grandma’s famous oatmeal cookies, one of her to-die-for chocolate birthday cakes with Smarties outlining the age of the birthday boy or girl. One child had a stick person rocking in a chair watching Jeopardy. There were mentions of jigsaw puzzles, crosswords, the glass candy dish with the lid, small details that have had the biggest impact on their young lives.
The great Grandchildren all congregated around a stack of card tables in a cloak room area where they had the space quickly converted into a make-shift, kids only, fort/haunted house/panic room.
I heard my five year old and my cousin’s daughter talking about how they knew great Grandma.
They both had a lot of the same candy, puzzle, thimble-sized juice glass, stuffed bear related stories, proving they did both in fact know this woman and had every right to have a seat in the panic/cloak room.
Her new friend asked Ellie if she knew how old great Grandma was on her birthday.
Ellie: I’m not sure but I think she’s close to google.
Hanna on the way home in the car: Mom, great Grandma’s pretty old. I hope she lives to be google.
Me too. We might however have to hire some muscle for that party. I moved like a google chairs yesterday.
