Boys Will Be…

 

Every year, Annie and I try to set a couple weeks aside for our grandkids to come for extended visits.  Since eight is a handful for even child-rearing pros like us, we found it convenient to split the two weeks up into Boys’ Week and Girls’ Week.  We’ve always tried to make it clear that those are just names and general guidelines, not hard and fast rules.

We just finished up Boys’ Week for this year.  I’ll sum it up in one word.

Wow.

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With my 91 year old mother living in the little house next to ours one of us tries to always be around in case she needs something.  So Annie headed off to Georgia to pick up our daughter-in-law, Amanda, and our grandson, three-year-old Richard while I stayed behind to take care of Mom and entertain our oldest son, Scotty, and his wife, Erin, along with their daughter, Pfiefer, and son, Payden, in his first year.  Travis’s wife, Danielle, brought their daughter, Emma, and three-year-old son, John.  Since they were all here, son Andy came up with his wife, Madison, and daughter, Harper.  Of course, our youngest son, Patrick would zip in and out as young, unattached boys do.

Confused yet?  Yeah, me too.

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The two older grandsons were here for the majority of the week but everyone else was in and out so I won’t put too much emphasis on the details of who was here when.

You’re welcome.

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Everyone visited Great Gran, as they call my mom, and she was overjoyed to talk to them, and even managed to sneak in hugs and kisses, as needed.  Needed by her.

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The boys were eager to help me do chores around the place, like gathering eggs every day, and helping me finish up the rails around Mom’s back deck.  We put on gates so that now the deck is safe for my vision-impaired mother to go outside as she desires.  That deck was also a perfect place for us oldsters to gather and talk while the little balls of energy we call grandkids orbited around us.

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Our old kiddie pool gave up the ghost after a couple years of hard use so Annie bought a new one for this year.  Believe me, it will get more use in Boys’ and Girls’ Weeks than all the rest of the year combined.

We all spent some time in the pool but the kids could easily spend all day splishing, splashing, and jumping in and out, while we old folks tired of it quickly and moved the firepit far enough away that we could light it up.

As soon as the rugrats discovered that Grannie had brought out the makings of burgers, dogs, and s’mores, their interests changed course.

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Everyone knows that S’mores consist of graham crackers, milk chocolate, and marshmallows, preferably toasted over an open fire.  What has never been scientifically explained is how those three ingredients combine to make such an incredible mess.

Well, think about it.  They have three forms of sweet, two kinds of sticky, and one part crumbly.  Add to that the dogs and flies that they attract, and multiply it by fire.  Stir in a couple little boys and some old people and you’ve got the potential for an endless sticky, chocolaty, crummy, delicious mess.

Now you know why we always make them over a fire.  Anything that can’t be eaten, changed out of, or washed off afterwards gets burned up.

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Uncle Andy showed the boys how to pass a football and I was enthralled watching two little boys pass the ball about 100 times each, and never twice in the same direction.

Andy redirected their energy to riding on a trailer pulled behind his pickup.  Since we’d had a mild rain and none of our straw bales was dry, we took a hayless hayride.  The ride was accompanied by laughs, giggles, and squeals of joy from the little ones, and the adults singing a chorus of, “sit down, don’t move, sit, stay on your hiney, no you can’t sit on the side” and well, I think you get the idea.

Andy steered around the farm and took us down the road and back without loss of life.

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The BYM (Bootheel Youth Museum) is always a destination when any of the grandkids are here for any length of time.  Kids can learn about bubbles, light, sound, biology, nature, and history, but adults are left wondering how three of us can be so constantly busy keeping up with two little boys and yet never cross paths with each other.

Hmmmm.

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Lazy L Safari Park is in Cape Girardeau, Missouri.  It is full of many different kinds of animals from all over the world.  Our boys fed the parakeets birdseed after they got over their fear of their fine feathered friends.  Then they took some other purchased food into the pen with the goats and were absolutely fearless.  I’m not sure how that worked.

I also don’t know how I got out of the pen without a single particle of goat, uh, “dirt” on me, whereas my lovely, kindhearted daughter-in-law looked like she rolled in it.  Well, more like she was trampled by it, as she was covered in little goat footprints.

Maybe it was my resemblance to a goat-eating bear.  I don’t know, but it worked out well for me.  Not so much for poor Amanda.

Our group finished the self-guided tour and agreed that we all wanted to adopt one of the tiny pigs, and that the huge, laid-back resident dog really wanted to go home with us.

We let the boys sift through a bag of sand to reveal semi-precious stones, fossils, and gold…well, fool’s gold, but why quibble; it was valuable to us.

A few minutes playing in the little playground rounded out the visit to Lazy L.

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After we left the Safari Park, we stopped by the Department of Conservation office in Cape to tour their museum, hike their trails, and buy my hunting and fishing license.

Fishing license?  See where we’re headed?

Well, you’ll have to wait for the next installment of A Different Drummer because I’m out of room for today.

See you next time.

 

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