Lydia Bongcaron Wade

Grandma Series III Lydia Bongcaron Wade

Part I

Grandma is babysitting for her two younger grandchildren--Olivia, eight years old, and Brian, five years old--in Tampa, Florida, in the spring of 2014 when their mother, Angela, goes to Los Angeles, California, to attend a doctors' conference for one week.

During her babysitting, Grandma gladly takes the children to wherever they were used to going with their mom: to the park, to the museum, to their favorite restaurant, and to the mall for shopping for toys and clothes. She also prepares noodles and other dishes and desserts they like to eat. In the evenings, she tells them the fantasy stories that her mother used to tell her and her sisters when they were young. The children enjoy Grandma's fictional stories very much, particularly Olivia.


Part II

On the second week of June 2014, Grandma's older grandchildren--Stephanie, eighteen, and Alexandra and Gabriella, both fifteen years old--go to Huntley to attend their grandmother's seventy-fifth birthday celebration. They stay with Grandma for four days, during which time they do the usual things they did during their previous visits when they were younger: swimming at Prairie Lodge or at Stingray Bay swimming pools, shopping at the malls, and picnicking at Del Webb's picnic area.

Afternoons are spent learning to cook and bake and listening to their grandma's stories when she was working in Queens, New York, senior centers for eighteen years. Her true stories about the seniors she was working with capture the girls' interest, especially Alexandra, whose ambition is to become a social worker one day.