Help!
Grandparenting is an important, serious job. I know. I get it. The world and its aunt know that we, the grandparents, are in charge. But how do I tell the grandkids this?
I try. I consistently try. Sometimes I fail, dramatically, and sometimes I feel I have done well, but afterwards I am left thinking – how did that happen?
The plan yesterday was simple. I often mind two grandsons of three years and a year and a half. And I always have a plan. It is necessary. What is also necessary are two helmets. These two see everything in life as a challenge; a wall or a tree trunk is not to be run around, it is to be run at and bounced off. A homemade ramp for toy cars is not just for the cars. On occasion, the ramp has been tried to be used as a hurley stick until mean grannie stepped in and removed it. Or the ramp becomes a walk the plank of a pirate ship, also quickly removed. Am I doing it wrong? Should I let them experiment and fall?
This time, my plan involved using the dog agility tunnel as a play tunnel along with a length of timber placed on the ground as a balance beam. Some cones became a circle for planes to run around and land on a square mat, or in this case, a soft cushion. I thought I was prepared. I fixed all I could to the ground with stays. (While I set it up, they got busy. Finding my mop and bucket they decided to be helpful. They mopped the yard!)
Thirty seconds in, and the most placid dog on earth, Mr Cooper, sat before me with a look of ‘oh sh*t what have you done!’ The cones were no longer on the ground. They were hats perched on top of their helmets or being used as guns. The play tunnel was in two pieces. The attached long, loose tunnel was high in the trees; it was swung about and lodged on a branch! The cushion was used as a tug-of-war implement and survived another minute.
What to do?
I confess I gave up. Well, if you can’t beat them, join them became the order of the day. I turned the cloth on the tunnel into a sledge pull (who said all those gym classes wouldn’t come in handy.) They were tired. I was well and truly exhausted. They were happy to go home, and I was happy to bring them home. Cooper’s photo says it all.
