Or to be more specific, by all of the “stuff” that goes everywhere that they do. You see our daughter-in-law Kris and grandchildren Mackenzie and Karter have been staying in South Florida for the month of June, splitting time between both sets of grandparents. We love our Florida home, we live and work very comfortably here along with our obedience school dropout puppy-Gabby (you remember her) and her brother Tigger the cat, fondly known as Hannibal Lecter. But when you add two kids under 3, a mom looking for some downtime and their “stuff”, it feels like were sharing a small studio in Manhattan. On this particular visit, “moving day” (from her parents house to ours) involved 3 carloads of “baby gear.” If we had been stopped for a traffic violation, I’m sure we would have had to explain that, “No Officer, we didn’t just boost a Babies R Us truck.”
And its amazing how the total landscape of your living room morphs into a giant playground. Without even leaving my Lazy Boy, I can catalog two pack ‘n play cribs, a swing, a bouncer, a Bumbo seat (you wouldn’t believe it if I told you) an Exersaucer, a Little Einstein play gym and I haven’t even gotten to the toys! A quick scan reveals a doll cradle, doll stroller, 3 puzzles (only Gabby knows where all the pieces are), a pretend kitchen, etc. If we get through July 4th without a doggie endoscopy to retrieve a Lego, it will be a miracle.
When I think back to the days when my own kids were this age, it is truly amazing that any of them survived, sleeping on their tummies, rolling around the “way back” of our station wagon on family trips. My kids did have a swing, but remember the horrible grinding noise it made when it was time to rewind? It always came down to a simple question, do you let the baby wake up because the swing has stopped moving, or do you wake the baby up with the horrible grinding noise when you rewind the swing? Our kids watched the world go by from the back of our brand new minivans; today they watch an endless loop of assorted videos on the backseat video screen. They say that, “old age is not for sissies”, add grandchildren to that phrase.
But lest I sound like Oscar the Grouch (can you tell our TV is on a permanent diet of Sesame Street?), we are having the greatest time. Its one thing to see the kids for a couple of hours here or there, but so much more fun to actually live with them and just hang out. Like the commercial says
watching Kenzie swimming around in princess sunglasses and pink floaties and Karter ensconced in his puppy dog float
priceless.
Charles Felix, Publisher
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