One of the benefits of being a grandparent is we're allowed to be easier on the grandkids, laughing when the parents are crying, snickering when the little ones are driving our adult kids crazy.
I got a phone call this week from a frustrated father, one of my sons.
"The boys were so bad, you won't believe what they did," he tells me.
Now before I go on, let me explain there has been an ongoing battle with drinks at bedtime and children who ever stop eating.
The boys, ages 5 and 7, are cut off by their parents for bedtime drinks at a certain time and no more snacks after dinner.
So when I got the phone call about the bad little grandsons…I had to laugh. I couldn't help it. The boys apparently got up in the middle of the night, dumped several bottles of water on a pile of clean clothes; ate an entire loaf of bread; and threw cheese everywhere.
I can only imagine my son's face when he got up the next morning. I think the boys chose pretty realistic activities that carried pretty clear messages myself, but no one was laughing except me.
I used to get upset too when I had rules set and my children wouldn't listen.
But after all I've been through over the past three decades if I've learned anything – it's laugh. Smile when you want to yell. Hug when you want to spank. Talk when you have calmed down. I'm not going to get into a big discussion about spanking vs. not spanking here today. Frankly, my dad spanked us. By the time I was about 10 years old, I decided spanking was not for me and I stopped getting in trouble – or stopped getting caught. I forget which one.
I do believe my grandsons have some things on their minds. I don't think they feel like anyone is listening to them. Like their grand-mom, they have a hard time holding in their feelings.
Truth is, when all is said and done, this bread-cheese-water incident will be a story their dad will tell at a family cookout twenty years from now when they are chasing their youngins around.
And everyone will laugh. Might as well start now
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Woman on the Edge: Food and gramma