BLOG-O-RAMA - Take Three

We love sidewalk chalk, so every year I buy a big box of it and on the first nice day of Spring we grab our favorite color and start drawing.

Audrey was so excited about her drawing. "Look Grandma! Look what I made."

"A ladder?" I asked, making a huge fuss over it.

Her shoulders dropped.

Oh, no. I've done it again. I've ruined her excitement.

And then in typical 4-year old fashion, she shook her head slightly and sighed. "It's SpongeBob!"

That was going to be my next guess.

The Negotiator and The Attack of The Tomato
Written Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Audrey and Kaden were looking out a window at a couple of guys parked across the street from my house. "That's Tommy," Audrey told Kaden.

"Who's Tommy?" Kaden asked.

"Tommy is my daddy's boyfriend."

Audrey and Kaden are both 4 years old and while their vocabulary is quite extensive, they still mispronounce words sometimes. Here's an example:

Audrey wanted to know if Kaden knew that tomatoes ruined houses. "You mean the big ones?" Kaden asked.

And Audrey responded, "Sometimes they call them twisters."

After this conversation I decided that Kaden should put on his clothes. His three cousins (some of my other grandchildren) were already dressed. Kaden wanted to stay in his pajamas.

"You can't go outside with your pajamas on," I reasoned with him. And he responded, "How do you know? Have you ever tried it?"

As the morning progressed I found it more and more difficult to restrain myself from laughing and told him that he had to put his pajamas on if he wanted to eat breakfast, to which he responded, "No I don't. I can eat breakfast with my pajamas on."

Two hours later, at snack time, I told Kaden, who was still wearing his pj's, that he HAD to put them on if he wanted a snack. And that's when I noticed Kaden's amazing negotiation skills.

"No, I don't. That's what you said at breakfast, and I still got breakfast."

Hmm.

"Well," I told him, attempting to outsmart the 4-year-old, "now it's snack time and if you want it, you'll have to get dressed."

"You forgot about it the last time," he reminded me.

But I was not to be outdone by my young grandson, so I reminded him that I was the boss in his parents' absence and that I could choose to NOT give him a snack. I saw the wheels spinning in his brain.

"OK," he said, "Here's what we'll do. Whoever says it the fastest wins. So if you say I have to get my clothes on, but I say I get a snack first, I win."

So, of course, I blurted out, "Kaden has to put his clothes on!"

And he said, "It didn't start yet."

Eventually he put on his clothes, but the whole day continued that way, them talking, me laughing, me trying to hide my laughing.

Being a grandparent is so challenging.

The Man In My Sister's Bed
Written Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Cindy, my little sister, was around four years old - I was about five and a half - when with voice quivering, she begged me to join her in her bed.

A frantic whisper spread across the room into my ears. "There's a man in my bed! Come here!"

Our twin sized beds were on different walls separated only by the corner with the door. I was the older sister who should help my little sister. But how would I get there without putting my feet on the floor? It was a problem. I couldn't do it. So I offered her some advice.

"Turn around." Yeah, that would get the imaginary man out of her bed. It was the best I could offer.

"I'm scared. Please come here. He has my doll."

She was getting on my nerves.

"So turn around really quick, grab your doll, and turn around again."

"I'm too scared," she pleaded, crying. "Pleeeeeaaase come here!"

A conscience is a really strange thing to acknowledge when you're not yet six years old. I felt terrible about my little sister's dilemma, but I had to show her how brave I was too; otherwise she might think I was a coward for not helping her.

So I solved the problem this way: "You come here."

"I can't. I'm too afraid."

"Run really fast (the distance from the bottom of her bed to the bottom of my bed was approximately four feet) or jump off the end of your bed onto the end of mine."

"I can't move. I'm too scared. I can hear him breathing." Cry cry sob sob.

The problem was more than I could handle. I really really really wanted to help her. I just couldn't explain to her that the reason I couldn't join her in her bed was because the second my feet hit the floor, the man under my bed would grab me by the ankles and pull me into oblivion.

I don't remember how we fell asleep that night. We went through numerous years of sibling rivalry, probably as a result of me abandoning her in her time of need, but - thankfully - we're friends now.

Previous Blog-O-Rama articles:BLOG-O-RAMA '" Take OneBLOG-O-RAMA '" Take TwoStay tuned for more from the Blog-O-Rama file.