As many of you are aware my children have the privilege of living in the same house as their grandparents…they are truly the luckiest kids in the world. This presents situations that bring both joy and consternation into my life.
First there is what I call the “grandpa shuffle”. The other day my son started getting Grandpa to chase him…this first started because he stole something of Grandpa’s off his bedside table and grandpa had to chase him down, because I won’t do it. My rule is “if you leave it down, then you chase him down.” And he is fast. So now in order to get Grandpa to chase him he goes in when he is sitting at his desk and pokes him until he gets up and then runs away. I was standing in the kitchen when Ryan came running around the corner, then I heard Grandpa saying “I’m gonna get you”, I look over to see Grandpa shuffle around the corner like a train because he has socks on and he doesn’t want to slip and fall on the kitchen floor. I nearly fell on the floor laughing just watching this, and since then it has become a ritual…I see Ryan running and laughing by and shuffling after him is Grandpa. This brings such joy into my life!
Then there is Grandma, who is bound and determined to corrupt my children. Grandma decides that the boy wants to go outside, so off they go and the next time I look outside the boy is naked and Grandma has turned on the hose. Upon re-entering the house Grandma announces that the boy needs ice cream…so out to the garage she goes with the boy so close in tow that he might as well be tied to her apron strings. Grandma has started making massive quantities of pancakes at Casey’s pleading, so now the boy does what she calls the red-haired, blue-eyed, pancake dance as he points at the stove…it kind of resembles a rain dance, only pancakes fall from the sky, not rain. When he is hungry he gets Grandma who lets him play in the fridge. All milk in the house has to be chocolate, because Grandma makes it that way. The default to every unwanted answer is to ask Grandma!
The worst part is that when I go in and ask them what they think they are doing or when I catch them in the act, they look up at me with wide eyes and tell me that they don’t know what I am talking about. They try very hard to look like innocent old people who have done nothing to corrupt their grandchildren. This morning as I was eating my toast and hot chocolate casually, my son climbs up on the table and sits in front of the butter container. Grandma gets up and gets a spoon from the drawer, comes back to the table, opens the butter container, and gives my son the spoon. She sits back down and goes back to eating…as I sit looking at her like any mother would. She averts her eyes and tries to start a conversation about the weather, like this will somehow excuse the before mentioned behavior. These old folks are exasperating me!
Though I may talk about these things that would normally drive any mother to drink, I love them to death and can’t imagine my life without them in it. The other night Ryane and I had to be gone for about an hour and my mom sat with the kids as they watched tv. When we got home the kids ran into greet us and I asked Casey if they had fun, she said “YES, Grandma stayed with us!” I said “well aren’t you lucky to have your Grandma and Grandpa living with you?”…to which she says to me, “yes, I love them!”
YES! I love them too, and despite the exasperating moments I love having them around for my children’s sake. My children are so lucky, so much luckier than their parents were. My grandfather died years before I was born, and both my grandmothers lived 4 hours away. When Ryane actually got to see his grandparents they weren’t really all there anymore. Neither of us had the joy of good times with our grandparents the same way our children do, and we are indeed grateful for the blessing that they are in our lives! Here’s to grandparents everywhere, may you all have the joy of spending a great deal of time with your grand-babies!
