Three of my grandsons are Jack aged 4, William aged 3 and Beau aged 2. Last Saturday morning I was on small boy duty as their mother went off on a Christmas shopping trip.
It was a series of adventures I have to say.
Their mother was ready to leave at 6.30am just as I arrived.
The boys slept and didn’t appear until 7.15.
William, aged 3, had forgotten his mother would be away. He went into his “I want my mum” routine which occupied him until he decided on having breakfast. Small boys are good at whinging for their mothers.
Breakfast was a circus all of its own.
Jack, aged 4, said he’d like pancakes and got out the mini pancake cooker.
I’d never seen one before. I hunted around in the pantry and found some pancake mix, you know the sort, add water and away you go. I asked myself how hard can this be?
I poured the pancake mix onto the cooker. The first few tries resulted in pancake mix going everywhere but, hey I was learning. Then I had to figure out how to turn them over, easier said than done.
I looked at the initial small round mini pancakes cooking quietly and discovered that when I went to turn them they ceased being the beautifully rounded design they were intended to be and instead I had little piles of cooked dough.
Jack said he was hungry and could eat a thousand, oh great!
Eventually I had enough made that looked somewhat like pancakes and after he drowned them in maple syrup he took them away to eat while he watched a DVD.
Beau, aged 2, decided he wanted pancakes too. He is not as particular as his two brothers and didn’t care what shape they are supposed to be or what shape Grandad actually served them up as. So he was happy.
Then Will, aged 3, said he wanted nutra-grain. Being no nutra-grain he decided on Vegemite toast. I cut it up as I thought he’d like only to be told he wanted big squares. After making him another piece he told me he wanted triangle squares, so that was another slice of bread.
I made a mental note to tell his mother to give Will geometry lessons next week.
In the meantime, Beau, aged 2, and a little garbage guts, spies the toast and decides he wants toast too. He doesn’t care what shape it comes in so that was an easy fix.
After a while I went to see how they were going. I discover that Jack, aged 4, has only eaten a few of his pancakes and William, aged 3, had eaten all his toast and now wanted some apple. Of course Beau, aged 2, wanted some as well.
The time was approaching when the boy’s father would arrive to collect them. I am cleaning up in the kitchen when I hear Jack, aged 4, call “Grandad, Grandad.”
Jack is in the toilet, so is Beau, aged 2, who for reasons unknown, just at that moment, is watching his brother. Jack decides to get off the toilet to get a face washer to clean his bottom.
On the way, he drops some of what should be in the toilet on the bathroom mat; Beau, aged 2, steps in it and starts walking it round the bathroom mat.
So I arrive to discover one boy with a dirty bottom and one boy with a dirty foot.
I sit Beau on the sink to clean his foot with one washer, Jack is trying to clean himself VERY unsuccessfully.
I look at Jack and say you better get in the shower and get cleaned up. I send the now cleaned Beau out of the bathroom, run the shower for Jack and get him under it. Then followed by Beau I pick up the bath mat and take it outside.
I grab the hose and start cleaning the mat, then hang it on the clothes line, turn up the water pressure and wash it down some more being careful not to wet Beau who is more interested in Jack’s poo than he should be.
I leave the mat to dry on the line and I take Beau inside. I get Jack out of the shower and send him to get dressed saying his dad will be here any minute.
Jack, thankfully, does find clothes and gets ready.
The boys waiting for their father to arrive, decide to engage Grandad in a spirited wrestle having watched the teenage mutant ninja turtle movie and of course, in the push, shove and tickle of the encounter Will, aged 3, gets bumped on the nose and is soon in tears.
Just as Will is about to descend into a state of hysteria, his dad arrives. I breathe a sigh relief.
I see them off wondering how it was that at one stage of my life, I too had a tribe of small children and how did I cope? But as a good friend has since said to me, it’s why the rearing of children is left to much younger people than us.
Morpethroad 
They say youth is wasted on the young but noot when it comes to raising children. Enjoyed it Michael.
Thank you John there is never a dull moment some days…..
I know what you mean.
I’m not planning on it being any sort of regular thing I have to say…
🙂
Mmm a thousand pancakes… this I could do. As long as someone else cooked!
You would smile to much at the ones I made….thankfully small boys aren’t too fussy…..
Suggesting I am fussy puts a smudge agin your name. Micael!
No just an honest appraisal of my cooking ability…..I actually left outt he bit about destroying one of the kids plastic knives as I started using that until I noticed I was melting it…but shhh….don’t go telling anyone especially my daughter…
Feeding molten toxic plastic to short humans is not good…
They never blinked an eye…..there was far too much maple syrup on them for them to taste anything else…
You survived! And so did the grandkids, so it was win win.
I smiled through out — reminds me of my baby-sitting days!
Michael, sounds like Grandpa was very busy. It reminds me much of my cousins when they were that small. But I’m positive Mom was thrilled to have time on her own to shop for gifts and er, other stuff. Glad you guys had fun.
Fun? Well that’s one way of looking at it…thanks for stopping by…
Hehe, I’m sure for them lol.
LOL three and four year olds are notorious for wanting their toast/bread cut into particular shapes. If you ask “Do you want triangles?” you have to be specific and ask 2 big triangles or 4 little triangles. It will mean the end of the world as we know it if it’s not done the right way 😀
tell me about it…it was all action I can tell you….
I do it every Tuesday 😀
I’ll need to get advice from the trenches SO to speak….I do a little stint of a Wednesday morning as well.
Lots of fun 😀 Next year it will just be Harry (he’s 2) as Lucy (5 in two weeks) goes to ‘big school.’
yep Jack goes next year too….
LOL something tells me the teachers will be really earning their money 😀
Yes most definitely….
hooting with laughter at the follies – but ahh, all’s well that ends well …. and since it seemed to have gotten off eventually with no hitches …. you managed the “worst” of it ….. and yes, as someone wisely said, the rearing of young is left to the younger …. and since you’ve already raised your brood, you get to play Granddad and spoil them and then … best part …. return them to their rightful minders when you’re all worn out! LOL! great reading and lots of laughs here!
Thank you, I showed it to my daughter(boys mum) and she thought it was hilarious. I think because it was someone else having disasters and not just her…
most likely …. after all, that’s quite the number and age group … and well, boys being boys …. and interested in all kind of bits and bobs! I’m sure that your daughter most appreciated the break and at the very least, you are now part of the share a story/laugh with her as she raises her kids 🙂