I love my little grandsons. I really do. But sometimes I want to pull out my hair and just scream.
I have four grandchildren; three are under the age of two and a half, are all boys, and quite often can be a trial.
The two-and-a-half-year-old lives in Florida and only comes to visit sporadically. Thank God. I think I would be in an early grave if he lived nearby. He recently came to visit, and when he left, I took to the bed. It took me two days of napping to recover. His name is Jay.
He is not deliberately bad or obnoxious, he is just mischievous and gets into everything. He is half Hispanic but looks absolutely beautiful with black hair and eyes, caramel skin, and pearly white teeth. He is a pretty child and knows it. We get free stuff everywhere we go. He has already learned that if he grins at people, he can get anything he wants.
His favorite thing to do is run, which he does non-stop all day between a nap and bedtime. I get exhausted just looking at him. Right now, he is my son’s only child, but because he is so energetic, my son and daughter-in-law are considering letting him be an only child. I am all for that.
When he was here last week, he probably wore out the tread on his little shoes. He has the build of a wiry athlete, as well as the stamina of a soccer player.
One day he ran up to me and held out his hand. Inside was a small black rubber band that I use on his cousin’s long hair when she visits. I said “thank you” and went back to checking emails. But suddenly it dawned on me where he got that rubber band from…a drawer in the bedroom.
I jumped up and took off running, only to find myself sliding to a halt in the hallway. Just like a trail of bread crumbs, small black rubber bands trailed from the hallway right into the bedrooms where they were scattered everywhere. The box was laying there on the floor was proudly stamped with the number 250, and yes, that’s how many rubber bands were tossed out on the floor.
I cleaned up the rubber bands…all 250 of them, and went back into the living room. Jay was not in sight. Nor was there any sound from him. That is the time to be suspicious. I went looking for him and found him in the kitchen.
Now, I had carefully wrapped a childproof fastener around the handles of the cabinets containing dangerous cleaning products, so I wasn’t too worried. But when I entered the kitchen, the little rugrat had pushed a stool up to a counter and pulled down pictures and coupons I had there. He had thrown them on the floor, so I fussed at him, and began picking those up as well.
But as soon as I turned around, he proudly showed me his newest possession, a screwdriver that he had fished out of another drawer much too high for him. Again, he used the stool. Frantic, I grabbed the screwdriver away from him, fussing at him again, shoved the stool across the room, and replaced the screwdriver in the top drawer. As I turned around, I was totally horrified.
He had his hands in the knife drawer and was fishing around, tiptoes on the stool.
By then, I was done. I grabbed him off the stool and spanked his little diaper-clad bottom. And you know that old saying, “This is going to hurt me more than you”…? NOT TRUE! I very happily swatted his little behind.
He quickly backed away from me and stared.
I waited for it. He was going to start crying and screaming any second.
Nope, not Jay. He gleefully grinned at me and took off running again.
Sigh.
Well, I survived the visit, and joyfully waved good-bye as the taillights disappeared down the road. But the next day?
I went to put something in a drawer only to discover that the little monster had loosened and unscrewed every single drawer knob and handle throughout the entire house.
He really doesn’t need any siblings.
