The smaller grandchildren tumbled about on the living room floor like happy little puppies, while the eldest girl tried to organize the bedlam. Anne kept repeating, “Let’s put on a dance for Grandma!” I smiled. The younger children were lost when Anne wasn’t home to direct their play.

 A golden ray of late afternoon sunshine found its way into the room through a slight opening in the drapes. The wayward shaft of light was like a spotlight on each towheaded child as they obediently trooped out of the room through the light to put on dress-up clothes.

Before the children were dressed and ready to put on a floor show, their mother and youngest sibling returned from town. I got up and walked into the dining room to talk to my daughter. When the children came back downstairs from their visit to my dress-up box, they were wearing prom dresses, scarves, petticoats, and lacy kerchiefs pinned in their hair. Anne begged over and over, “Mom, Grandma, come into the living room and watch us dance!”

We all returned to the living room, and Anne lined her siblings up. I took a picture of the performers. When she said, “Ok” they all began to twirl, jump and leap. If enthusiasm indicates a superior performance, my daughter Niki and I were watching the world’s best dancers.

“Watch me dance” was a demand I heard Anne make often when she was a small girl. It didn’t seem to matter if her siblings danced with her or not. In her mind, she seemed to feel she was on a stage, and that her leaps and twirls were flawlessly choreographed movements.

After the “watch me dance” stage had passed with my grandchildren, I introduced them to tea parties using real tea. Our pretty cups and saucers came from resale stores. For the proper tea party attire for my granddaughters, I rummaged through storage boxes where I found all the hats I wore to church as a child. Flowered hats wouldn’t do for the grandsons. They needed to wear ties at formal tea parties, so I found my late husband’s ties in the bedroom closet. He had hated wearing them, but I’d never thrown them out.

When my daughter visited me on Tuesday afternoons, my grandchildren and I would have tea parties. The little girls were allowed to pick which hat they wanted to wear, and the little boys chose the tie they wanted. My attempts at Windsor knots were pathetic, but no one seemed to care.

The tea was never very hot, and it was always much too sweet. I bought sugar cubes, just so I could ask, “Do you want one lump…or two?” I jokingly told them to hold out their pinky fingers when bringing the cup to their lips. The children seemed to enjoy the tea parties as much as I did.

It has been a long time since I had tea parties with the grandchildren. Recently, my eldest granddaughter, Anne, messaged me. She said, “I want to put on a garden tea party. May I hold it at your house?”

When the day of the party arrived, Anne had arranged tables on the lawn in the shade of the house. She used her great grandmother’s rose plates to set the table. The menu, all lovingly made by my granddaughters, included clotted cream and homemade jam to put on scones, crustless cucumber sandwiches, little fruit-filled cakes, and lemonade for those who don’t drink tea. Her guests wore floral dresses, and while they enjoyed each other’s company, classical music played in the background.

My daughter Tammie told me that Anne had said, “Putting on a party like this was a childhood fantasy come true.”

By the time Anne, Niki, Claire, Gemma, and Tammie went home that afternoon, the dishes were washed, the kitchen cleaned, and everything that had been used was put away. Feeling content, I sat down in my living room. A small ray of sunshine peeked in through a small opening in the drapes, and I remembered once again all the times my granddaughter had begged, “Grandma, watch me dance!”