How do I know this? I am a grandfather. I have watched. Our eighteen month old grandson wants to see everything which has been placed neatly on shelves lying on the floor instead. He is a kind of magnet. He walks through and your house has been turned into a disaster area.
I have three more grandsons and any one of them can create the same kind of mess. Ironically if we have all four the resulting chaos is the same. The big difference being that one tears things out and another removes a certain item from one place on the floor and takes it somewhere else. It may be the stairway. It may be found in Papa’s shoe. Be careful, Papa. Those toy cars can hurt your foot.
It gets even worse. You may find a rubber ducky in the oven. Whatever you do, do not turn on the oven until you have looked inside.
Here is another interesting fact. They all love buttons and remote controls. We had to move our TV set high up on top of the entertainment center instead of the little shelf which was made for it. Our grandchildren managed to wear out the on-off switch. We literally need the remote control now because it is the only way to turn the set on and off.
Telephones are another thing of interest to kids from the age of six months on. Here is another point. There is a joke going around about the wife who hides the remote so her husband gets some exercise. Actually, both Grandma and Grandpa hide the remote so the little ones do not reprogram the whole TV set, VCR and DVD player. How they can make the TV set suddenly speak in Spanish is beyond me to know but they do it. This is really amazing because my wife can’t do it.
One might think to himself, “The grumpy old man is complaining as usual.” Actually I find it amusing and challenging. I keep telling my wife, “I’m always glad to see them come but I’m always glad to see them go home.”
They are wonderful bundles of joy and we spoil them rotten but it does make me wonder how we ever got past parenthood. When our kids left Grandma and Grandpa’s house they left with us.
I guess what goes around comes around. I only hope my kids learn the joys of grand parenting some day.
