The Lesson I Learned from Chelsea's Birthday Dinner

Today is Chelsea's birthday. She is seventeen and will be a legal adult in a year. That will give her lots of freedom, but also, more responsibilities. However, if anyone can handle responsibilities, it is Chelsea. She has her feet solid on the ground and seems to know what she wants out of life. I hope no one will get in her way, including herself. There is probably a greater risk of her giving up her dreams than for someone or something stopping her. We all tend to give up too easily on our dreams because of our own insecurities. Chelsea is smart and like all of us, is still trying to find out who she is and why she is here. Though we may argue about whether our ancestors were chimpanzees or not, I am very proud to be her grandfather.

I have been asking what she wanted for her birthday dinner for the last week without getting much feedback. I assumed it was chicken, but just how did she want it prepared and what did she want with it? I finally decided if she didn't tell me what she wanted, I would make homemade fried chicken, corn-on-the-cob, mashed potatoes, and gravy . Since she likes chicken legs, I was going to get a package of legs and a package of thighs to fry. I haven't prepared fried chicken for too many years to recall and was kind of looking forward to it. At least, all but the cleaning up of the new stove, because any type of deep frying really splatters oil everywhere.

I asked her one more time this morning while taking her to school and I finally got an answer. What Chelsea really wanted for her birthday dinner was a menu. I found out that she really wanted to go out to the Mongolian Grill, but was reluctant to tell me. To be honest, she had talked about wanting to go to the Mongolian Grill to eat, but not in a "birthday meal" context. I failed to pick up on it as a birthday meal. In fact I think I even made some comment about "that not really being good chinese food."

Sooner or later I am going to learn that my grandkids find me a little unapproachable. I am aware I am opinionated, but I haven't considered myself unapproachable. I need to be more aware of what they are saying when they do talk to me. I need to find a way to fix that communication problem. I don't want my grandkids to consider me a buddy, but I do want them to know that I am interested in their ideas, even though I may mis-understand them or not always agree with them; and when I can, I really am interested in giving them what they want, even if I am a little slow on the uptake.