Life always provides an opportunity to learn. Although I experienced the raising of four children, many of the things that they did as little children have been stored away for memories or just forgotten with time. Since our children have grown and and spread their wings to start families of their own, we have been blessed with having the opportunity to spend time with our grand children, time that we cherish and feel fortunate that we live within driving distance to all of them. However, it has been a few years since we have had small children stay with us for an extended time without parental guidance. We are now into the learning curve once again. I know, those of you who have children will consider this "no big deal" but having been absent from the scene for a few years it is new and refreshing!
Having one of our grandsons and granddaughter staying with us for a few weeks has brought back many memories of years past. I had forgotten, that when you are busily working on a building project, all the little questions that can be asked by a six year old boy while you are trying to formulate measurements in your mind. Then of course, comes the next question, can I have some nails and a hammer? The next 30minutes of your construction time is spent helping him nail some pieces of wood together. The finished project looks similar to a piece of wood with several other blocks of wood nailed to it. However, to him, we have just completed a replica of the "Titanic" and now I know the entire story line of the movie!
A picnic outing to the river with their grandmother resulted in the capture of two salmon or trout smolt by my granddaughter. It might as well have been the largest king salmon in the river, she would not have been happier. But, now we have to devise an aquarium to hold the little fish. This was easily accomplished by a "bulk candy" jar left behind from the video store business. House water would not do so a second trip to the river to get real "genuine" river water. How to feed them, oh that was so simple, you hold out your arm until a mosquito lands on you and you capture him. The mosquito has a life span of about one second when dropped into the tank. That is so much fun, a second outing is planned for the next day, this trip yields five new fish and of course now we need a second candy jar because after all we can't have his and her fish mixing. Mosquito hunting has been a big thing around our house as of late.
Then there are always the disasters that await, parents are use to keeping a ear open to problems such as this but grandparents have a tendency to think that nothing can go wrong. That is until you are busy working on a project, your grandson is playing in his favorite stand of alders (fort) and you distinctly hear his say, Damm! Without looking up, I reply, "what did you say" to which he replies, "I fell out of the tree", hearing no screaming for help I ask him if he is o.k. and he replies, "yea, I just fell on my head", that got my attention. Bedtime, is always so much fun, this past evening as my grandson was preparing to go to bed he went to his grandmother complaining that his ear hurt. She looked at him and told him it must just be a mosquito bite, I watched him tug on his ear a bit and then he laid down. As I went to tuck him in, he once again said his ear hurt so I made an attempt to diagnose the problem. Yes, there is something in your ear, but what, then I noticed some torn up tissue laying next to him. Could that possibly be a "spit wad" in your ear? It is embedded almost out of sight. After working on him for several minutes with a pair of tweezers trying to extract his obstruction and pinching his ear in the process, I resign myself to walk out to the shop and get my hemostats from my fishing jacket, a nice cured set with a small tip. This will get job done and scare hell out him in the process. Half way back to house, he appears on the deck to let me know that I did not need the "pliers", grandma got it out with the silver thing. The "dragon" books are out again to be read from cover to cover, plans being made to lure one in from the forest and capture him. Fortunately, the "dragon" feet that I made a couple of years ago are still stowed out of site in the outbuilding, perhaps it is time to break them out, once again. So many moments, so much innocent humor, for those of you that have children, my only advice is do not take it for granted and enjoy it to the fullest as a day will come when you will forget the trivia of being a parent.