My daughter and her family are coming to visit for a few days. For some reason, Mom's house is now the new vacation spot. Not that I am complaining, mind you. Just getting to see them other than on a special occasion is always a treat. They always come with a load of energy and then the adults leave dragging babies, suitcases and ornery animals out to the car at the end of the visit. After the tail lights have receded, Grandma goes around the house doing an inspection of the contents. Will always find things missing, misplaced, or broken. I'm still trying to figure out what happened to a lid on a glass jar in the kitchen.
I find things in the most unusual places. Living room knickknacks on top of the frig, portable telephones in laundry baskets, books in the dryer, and gummy bears in the planter. My house is not baby-proof, so I know that when something is taken away from the youngest one, it is thrown wherever they happen to be standing at the time. Tampons are much better placed on the hutch in the dining room than up the child's nose during experimentation.
Why couldn't we have had our grandchildren first? There is no pressure to turn them into functional human beings, and if they are screwed
up as adults we can blame someone else. All I have to do with them is play and then let someone else be the bad guy. I can get out there and jump in a pile of leaves or roll around in a mud puddle and not be called senile because I am doing a childish thing, with a child. Silly rule if you ask me. This last year, I bought the 9 year old a pocket knife. You would have thought that I had given him an AK47 and told him to get on the roof. My daughter protested that he was too young and I told her that if someone showed him how to use it properly, then he was more than old enough. It wasn't a Bowie knife for goodness sake. When she continued to protest, I told her that a grandma trumped a momma and he was keeping it. We then got out a watermelon and he practiced cutting up the watermelon. {"It's dirty!" "Hey, the acids in your stomach will get rid of anything icky and I cleaned it off, child. Go change a diaper or something"}
up as adults we can blame someone else. All I have to do with them is play and then let someone else be the bad guy. I can get out there and jump in a pile of leaves or roll around in a mud puddle and not be called senile because I am doing a childish thing, with a child. Silly rule if you ask me. This last year, I bought the 9 year old a pocket knife. You would have thought that I had given him an AK47 and told him to get on the roof. My daughter protested that he was too young and I told her that if someone showed him how to use it properly, then he was more than old enough. It wasn't a Bowie knife for goodness sake. When she continued to protest, I told her that a grandma trumped a momma and he was keeping it. We then got out a watermelon and he practiced cutting up the watermelon. {"It's dirty!" "Hey, the acids in your stomach will get rid of anything icky and I cleaned it off, child. Go change a diaper or something"} My son had invented the word 'no' as a child and it was easier wrestling a herd of turkeys than it was to get him to wash his hair. "Stop running in the house!" he hollers at the grandkids. I tell him to leave them alone. As l
ong as they are not running with pencils and scissors we are fine. "Get off the railing!" as they attempt to climb up there on the front porch. "Leave them alone, they are exercising" I tell him. "Well, if they fall off and get hurt, it will be your fault." he advises me. "I bet they won't do it again, though." I tell him. He doesn't understand my logic. I've learned that children do not easily break and dirt isn't necessarily going to disintegrate little hands like battery acid. The joy of sitting up in a tree and looking down at the world is worth the risk of skinned up knees trying to get back down again.
ong as they are not running with pencils and scissors we are fine. "Get off the railing!" as they attempt to climb up there on the front porch. "Leave them alone, they are exercising" I tell him. "Well, if they fall off and get hurt, it will be your fault." he advises me. "I bet they won't do it again, though." I tell him. He doesn't understand my logic. I've learned that children do not easily break and dirt isn't necessarily going to disintegrate little hands like battery acid. The joy of sitting up in a tree and looking down at the world is worth the risk of skinned up knees trying to get back down again. When one of the grandkids was doing something that had the potential to harm him, I told him that if he got hurt, I was going to have to get a big knife out of the kitchen and chop off the body part that would be injured since I didn't have any other medicine for it. Sure enough a short time later, I hear a loud thump and then a squeal in the dining room. He only had time for a couple sniffles before I hollered, "Get the knife!" He jumped up as if he had been bitten and screamed back, "I'm okay, Grandma!" Works every time.
I can hardly wait until I can sneak off into the corner and start whispering with one of them, so my daughter can say, "What are you two talking about?!" We always smile and say. "Nuttin', Honey", then giggle because we aren't saying anything at all. Or maybe we'll go make something very messy in the kitchen that is full of sugar and goo and watch as the parents roll their eyes because they know that it may be midnight before the sugar high wears off enough for sleep. One particular afternoon of making cookies, the grandson was sitting at the breakfast nook eating one of those cookies and he says, "Hey Grandma, how come I am sitting here eating a cookie and you are over there cleaning up the mess?" I said, "Yeah, how did it work out that way?" "I don't know," he says, taking another big bite. "But I like it" Don't tell him, but I like it too.
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