Bad Grandparents: Disaster Averted
“No! No!” he shouted, and pushed away the spoon full of rice and beans which he normally loves. No. He wanted BaBa to walk him around the restaurant some more, showing him serapes and sombreros and gaudily crowing roosters.
‘More. More,’ he signed.
“It’s dinner time, time to eat,” GaGa said calmly, signing for ‘eat.’
“No! No! Done!” He may not have a large vocabulary, but Happy Baby knows how to communicate pretty clearly. BaBa goes to pick him up, but I say no, it’s dinner time. Very calmly. The shrieks begin, the arched back, the tears. Baba looks at me accusingly; what to do? I know we need to hold our ground, but it is so hard when the piercing shrieks start.
And then, a miracle. The waiter shows up with a small plate of whipped cream with chocolate sauce over it.
What self-respecting grandparent would allow a child to feast on whipped cream??
Desperate grandparents. Grandparents who can’t bear to hear him shriek. We let him eat the whipped cream, but he had to eat it on his own, with the spoon. He’s not very efficient with the spoon yet, so he couldn’t really get much. And, between tiny spoon tastes of whipped cream, BaBa and I have discovered he will eat beans and rice after all. He ate all the beans and rice, and only got a little of the whipped cream, but he was happy. And so were we.
On some deep level I feel like we have shirked our responsibilities, but oh, those shrieks . . .
When we are at home, we can ignore the shrieks. One time he was shrieking, and when we ignored him, he stopped, came closer and then flopped down and started shrieking again. We couldn’t help it, we just laughed. It was so hilarious. When he saw us laughing, he gave up and got involved with something else. He is so much fun. š
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Not a bad Grandma–good for you holding your ground. Diversion at the table is good. We used to carry oyster crackers/cheerios for diversion. I’m with you, tho. Those piercing shrieks that kids manage almost physically hurt my ears.
LOL, you are so right, Momcat, I carry raisins and animal crackers, but what he wanted was for BaBa to entertain him, as he does so well. And oh, those shrieks! Fortunately we were early, and the only customers in the restaurant, where we go often, so they know us. It worked out, but for a few minutes, I thought we were going to have to leave.
Grandparents get to play by a different set of rules than parents; the parents have to stand their ground, we get to indulge and spoil.
Oh! Hmmmmm. . . . I like the way you think, Ken! š