I'm Too Old for That

It's good to be back home where I most assuredly belong! Mel and Gerry have been expanding the Nana-Boompa roles this past week as we assumed the week long babysitting, chief house made, cook and cab driver for five of our grandkids while their parents were vacationing in sunny Mexico as they noted their 25th wedding anniversary. I am tired and my wife is exhausted; physical and mental capacities ain't what they used to be.

Keeping pace with activities' schedules can be both fun and a bit challenging; keeping track of a 23-month old very independent child who misses her mommy and cries every time an older sibling leaves for school, etc. is nerve-racking! Gerry and I have 15 grandchildren and one great-grandchild; we have held week long camps at our home with all the grandkids minus their parents, however there is a whole new issue in play when the grandparents are in their mid-seventies and the responsibility includes a pouting, non-communicative unhappy, 'I miss my mommy kid.'

Last Friday, I was on the telephone 'reporting' the baseball pitching events of the Barrington high school freshman baseball pitcher to his Mexico vacationing mother (daughter Dawn) and my wife was seeing one of the other children off on the morning school bus. I hung up the telephone and was asked by Nana, "Where is Ashlyn? I did not have a clue and could immediately gather by my wife's suddenly enlarged eye-balls that we were on the same page, as they say.

If you have ever momentarily misplaced a toddler in a store or looked up assuming your toddler was next to your side only to discover she is nowhere in sight then you know the enveloping sickness of gut, increased heart rate and swirling imagination. Folks, the challenge: find this 17 pound barefooted grandkid in this 22-room house consisting of three-floor levels, a five car garage and check the doors to make sure they are locked; don't incorporate any thoughts about the large recreation lake adjacent to the yard.

Question for consideration: When racing about a huge house looking in closets, under beds, behind furniture and screaming a kid's name for seven minutes and then noticing one door unlocked, how long do grandparents wait before dialing 911? Answer: They don't!

Four of South Barrington's finest joined our searched which continued another ten or 12 minutes. Suddenly without warning or fanfare the missing kid whose face you have been imagining on a milk carton peeks out from a doorway. As they say, 'All is well that ends well,' however, I NEED A BREAK FROM GRANDKIDS!