Possibly the main advantage of being a grandparent, is come the end of the day you can sleep soundly knowing that night time bottles, nappy changes, tantrums and other disturbances can be left to the parents. Conversely, grandparents are permitted to buy entirely inappropriate presents, over-excite the little ones just before bedtime and produce sweets and treats whenever they feel like it. Mind you, they know the problems of parenthood – they were the parents a generation ago. Is it that they are getting they own back?
Kim and Mike don’t see their grandchildren too often. It’s sixteen or so hours flying time and a huge time difference so Skype generally provides a poor substitute. But now they are in Milwaukee, they make the most of their time with Leilani, age 3 and George, eight months. Within hours of them arriving George had started to crawl and Kim lost no time in joining him on the floor
Leilani likes to help and soon showed her prowess with the broom clearing up after George’s dinner time.
Speaking of meals, George enjoys leading the fashion in wearing his meals almost as much as he does eating them. At eight months the whole concept of eating is taken very seriously.
Easter Sunday and about 300 small children under 4 arrived for the Easter egg hunt. Actually there were only about eight of them but it seemed like 300! Industrial quantities of small plastic eggs had been scattered around the garden and with whoops of delight the toddlers set off with their baskets to retrieve their fair share of the hoard. Not all eggs contained chocolate. In the interest of parent sanity some were filled with small bags of sweets that could be rationed as appropriate while others contained small toys, possibly to divert attention from the chocolate.
For the parents, lunch and drinks provided a welcome diversion before supervising of the younger ones and their food. How the kids managed to eat anything after all that chocolate was nothing short of amazing. Hopefully all of them retained their input!
To avoid confusion, Kim is known as Nye Nye, which is Chinese for Grandma, a spurious link to the past – Kim and Mike were married on Hong Kong. Mum Anna and Dad John both have demanding careers and as Easter week is a holiday at kindy, Granddad and Nye Nye were left in charge for Monday and Tuesday. Granddad aged visibly!
Tomorrow we’re all away to Indiana to spend a few days on a farm. How we get on will be the subject of the next blog. Until then, this is a tired but happy Granddad signing off.
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