What should Grandma record?

About when you were small

• Your bedroom at seven, down to the wallpaper.
• The walk to school, and where you dawdled.
• Your first pet and the trouble it caused.
• The dinner you dreaded; the one you raced home for.
• A time you got in trouble that's funny now.
• Saturday mornings in your house.
• The toy you loved until it fell apart.
• Your first job and your first paycheck.
• The teacher you still think about.
• The smell of your own grandmother's kitchen.

About their mom or dad (this is you)

For the kids, the crown jewels: proof their parent was once small, ridiculous, and in trouble.

• The day their mom or dad was born, starting with the weather.
• Their parent at their exact age.
• A rule their dad broke and thought he got away with.
• The picky-eating phase, in full detail.
• The worst haircut you ever gave or allowed.
• What their mom wanted to be when she grew up.
• The road trip that went wrong.
• A report-card story their parent hoped you'd forgotten.
• How their parents met, told like a fairy tale.
• Watching them hold their own baby for the first time.

Family lore

• How our family got here: boat, border, or bus.
• The relative everybody has a story about.
• The house everyone remembers, room by room.
• The recipe with a story attached.
• The thing in your drawer you'd never sell.
• A wedding that didn't go to plan.
• The family joke nobody remembers starting.
• What your parents' hands looked like.

How things used to work

To a six-year-old this is science fiction. Lean into their disbelief.

• One telephone on the wall, the whole house sharing it.
• Waiting a week for your song on the radio.
• School shoes and the one-pair rule.
• Finding your way before maps could talk.
• Milk at the door, mail twice a day.
• What a candy bar, a movie, and your first car cost.
• Snow days without screens.
• The evening news, and the neighbor over the fence.

The silly ones

Kids love a grandparent who commits. Dignity is optional.

• Your best animal noises, with commentary.
• Every nickname you've ever had, and who's to blame.
• The most trouble a sibling got you into.
• What the dog is thinking, narrated live.
• A tall tale where the fish keeps growing.
• The rules of a game you invented.
• Your best joke, told twice.
• Counting to ten in every language you know, and how you learned them.

For reading aloud, not telling

On nights when a prompt feels like work, the book does the thinking and her delivery does the loving. (Modern books can be under copyright; unsure about one? Ask us. Fairy tales, classics, and her own stories are always safe.)

• The book you loved at their age.
• A fairy tale you can tell without the book.
• The poem you memorized in school. It's still in there.
• The lullaby your mother sang, and the story of her singing it.
• A picture book the grandkids own, so they can turn pages along.
• 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, every December, forever.