Oliver

Grandma is a Good Egg.

Some time ago at a craft show we saw a Onesie that proclaimed in bright red letters, “HELP! Mom’s having a bad day, call 1-800-Grandma”.  Well, Oliver was having a bad day and decided to tell his mother of all her shortcomings.  He is now 5 years and 6 months old and is a ball of energy.  He started out by telling her that she was not as good as Grandma.  After all, Grandma takes me to the candy store any time I want to go, all day, and you don’t do anything with me.  She took me walking around the block, any time I wanted to , all day, and you don’t take me anywhere .  Grandma played Chick chick any time I wanted to, all day, and you never play chick chick with me.  Grandma loves me and you don’t.

Well, there you have it, Grandma trumps Mommy and is the source of all good things.

We were at the archives digitizing and the Skype screen lit up and it was Sara, calling to tell us of this conversation she just had with “your grandson”.  Notice when he is less than kind, he is our responsibility?  Well, I guess I did a good job as a grandma each time I visited them.

The tradition is for me to take the children, one at a time, to Kabredlo’s gas’n’go store.  It is about 2 blocks from Sara’s home and the rule is they have to walk with Grandma and hold my hand.  If they let go and start running away to the store, we don’t get to the store but we turn around and go home.  I have three VERY OBEDIENT grandchildren when it comes to going to the store to buy goodies.  One year I thought I should take the eldest first and youngest last, but that was a disastrous decision.  Lyla thought I was leaving her and never coming back.  Oliver also was upset that Ethan went first.  So we reversed the order, explained the moves to Oliver and Ethan and so I took Lyla first.  However, when I came back with her and picked up Oliver, she wanted to go again.  It was a hard rule to teach her.  But, now that she is older, she understands that they have to take turns because Grandma is not into herding cats for a living and cannot keep track of 3 munchkins all at once………not 30 years old anymore.  Another rule we have is that when we get back from the store, we are not to eat anyone else’s goodies if they leave them on the table.  We also do not barter with the little ones for what may seem like a  better deal than what we originally got.

As for walking around the block- well Oliver loves to run.  He starts out at the house walking next to me but not wishing to hold my hand but is content to walk – but Grandma does not walk fast enough for his liking so by the time we reach the house next door, he is at a full tilt run down to the corner.  He stands there for a moment and then he gets antsy and wants to turn the corner.  He has managed to wait till I got to within one house of the corner and then he takes off at a full tilt run to the next corner and so on until we get to the house again.  I wish I could say that we walk together but it is good exercise for Oliver and an anxiety attack for Grandma.

As for chick chick – well it began with a simple “I’m gonna get you Oliver” and then walking like Herman Munster with hands outstretched and making chick chick noises, it was his turn to do something so he ran and then when he could not go anywhere because he had run into a corner, I would grab him and tickle him and then the game would start all over again.  Ethan loves this game and he is quite agile and goes up the stairs and I say no stairs………..but then he comes down and begins to run.  When Lyla was little, she got knocked over quite a few times during Chick Chick but soon she learned to keep up with the boys or get out of the way.

The reason Oliver got upset with his mother was that she asked him to help clean up the downstairs that he and Lyla had messed up.  He refused so he was told he had to go into his room until the job was completed by Mom.  He wanted to go into the backyard and play but was told he could not do that until he had helped clean up or spent time in his room.  So that is when he told his mother that there was just no comparison between her and Grandma – Grandma wins hands down.

this is the latest picture of Oliver - taken by the Iphone from a Skype transmission.