5 Annoying New Things Ethan’s Learned About Being a Grandparent

When playing together, I've noticed that a two and a five-year-old's excitement level can reach max volume quickly especially if there's a physical activity involved such as running, chasing, or wrestling. When a two-year-old little girl becomes extremely wound up while being involved in any of those activities she tends to launch into a blood-curdling scream, That is the moment when Mimi and Papa begin watching the clock hoping mom and dad will walk through the door at any second.     

If you have a headstrong grandson or granddaughter, you've seen that face they make when they don't get their way. It makes you want to yell,

Don't give me that face! You're only 3 years old, which means I'm still the boss!

I've had to learn the hard way not to raise my voice around Bradley and Winter. The last time I tried to make my point by yelling, Bradley ran away into Mindy's office and shut and locked her door and Winter looked at me, scrunched up her cute little face and began to wail.

In the photo below Bradley is giving me the cold stare because I wouldn't get up off the couch to get him a glass of chocolate milk.

Once upon a time, programming our home alarm system was the easiest course of action to keep us protected from the bad guys. Well, not anymore.

Everytime the kids are over, there's an excellent chance that legos of all shapes and sizes will litter the living room, kitchen, and hallways. Have you ever stepped on a lego or two with your shoes off?

The obvious solution to this issue is to make sure the little darlings pick up after themselves. When that doesn't happen, Mindy and I scoop up various legos and scatter them near the front door and then do the same on the stairs! This way, not only can you hear a pesky intruder when they step through the door but they will never make it up the stairs.   

Bradley lives for any toy that has wheels like firetrucks, front loaders, dump trucks, buses, and his very favorite, TRAINS! He's visited the Danbury Train Museum so many times with Mindy that they know him by name.

Almost everytime we see him, the first words out of his mouth are, "Mimi, can we go back to the train museum today?" It finally got to the point when we had to tell him the train museum was closed during the winter months.

Of course we don't feel good about fibbing to a 4-year-old but sometimes it's your only defense to tell a little white lie. Don't judge me but, am I going to burn in hell?

The first time we were asked to babysit for Bradley, the first thing we noticed were four pages of step by step instructions. WTF! We wondered if Matt and Kelly had forgotten that we had three kids of our own.

There we stood, both of us reading a step by step course on how to change a diaper, how and when to give Bradley his bottle, how and what to say when putting him to bed. It was like we had never taken care of a baby before. Did I tell you we have three grown children of our own?

I know that new parents have their way of doing things, but did they think we might slip a crumbled up chocolate chip cookie into his formula? And don't even get me started on not getting permission to drive him anywhere until he was two!