Alex Haley said, “Nobody can do for little children what grandparents do. Grandparents sort of sprinkle stardust over the lives of little children.” In my experience, more often it’s the grandchildren who sprinkle stardust in the sensible, practical eyes of their grandparents. And you can quote me.
Laurel before the curtain rose on Peter Pan
Today was one of those unforgettable days that will be stored in my memory vault forever. Time spent with any or all of my grandchildren is precious but some days earn an E rating, for exceptional.  It was an emphatically E day for me.
The restored Athens Theater in our town.
This afternoon, seven year old Laurel and I enjoyed a fabulous production of Peter Pan, the Musical. It played at the restored circa 1920 Athens Theater in downtown Deland, which titled itself The Athens of Florida more than 100 years ago.  The playhouse was as enchanting as the performance and my darling granddaughter. She wore a smocked Little Sunday Dresses pinafore and was cute, cute, cute.
Just being at the theater was a treat. But the treat was sweeter still for seeing the amazement in the eyes of this child who is more familiar with the bare bones architecture of the Cinema 6.
As she snuggled close to me, I could feel the tension in her little body when Peter himself flew through the Darling family’s nursery window. I witnessed her obvious longing for the pixie dust that enabled the children to fly away.
After the performance, the audience (mostly children) was invited to meet the cast at the stage.
The first character she encountered was Captain Hook, and my normally confident granddaughter was reluctant as she posed with the villain.
More to Laurel’s liking, Peter Pan him/herself posed with her followed by Wendy and loveable Nana the nursemaid dog.
I tried to convince Laurel that the dog was named after me, her very own Nana. But she wasn’t buying it.
After the theater, we had ice cream and a lengthy, meaningful conversation about magic of childhood, a subject in which she is well versed.   Disney’s Magic Kingdom, she explained, isn’t about magic TRICKS, it’s about the way you feel when you are in Cinderella’s castle or floating through It’s a Small World. That’s the magic, she told me.
It is easy for a child to feel the magic, I added, but I spend a lot of time worrying about doing laundry, fixing dinner and weeding the roses. So it takes some effort to look beyond these responsibilities in order experience the wonder of childhood. Grandparents, I told her, need grandchildren to see the world through their eyes. She, Robert and Alastair are my personal pixie dust.
We vowed to always encourage one another to keep this special vision. Then we agreed that having dessert before dinner was okay every now and again, especially on magic days.
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