Adopting an Attitude

The other day, I was waxing lyrical about how wonderful it is to have found a couple of people mad enough (cough, alright .. warm-hearted enough) to become adopted grandparents to my children. I was even thinking of writing a blog about this rare twosome, until it suddenly occurred to me that it probably isn’t all hearts n’ flowers when they get saddled with my kids. Especially in the summer holidays when there’s diddly squat to do, for hours on end.

And I know that it can’t be much fun for them sometimes, because we’re currently undergoing an issue that the vast majority of homes with kids have experienced at one time or another. The ‘Screaming Screen Paddies’ as we tend to refer to them.  I’ve shared here before, that compared to most families, we’re strict on TV viewing (few hours a weekend), harsh on screens in rooms (nuffin’) and downright mean-spirited on access to the latest gaming technology (ZX Spectrum for 10 minutes … if the little critters are lucky and have chopped enough wood for the next six months.)

None of this is particularly born of a high, moral, principled stance on our part (though we can pretend with the best of the annoying, ‘got it sussed’ parents, if we’re in the mood). Nah. It’s because quite frankly, the folk in our household are not particularly nice to be around when they’re immersed in screens. And one of them in particular struggles with regulating his temper in relation to them (and I don’t mean the husband.)

But even though we take all of this screen discipline stuff very seriously, the school holidays are a time for fun, for a bit of slob-out and come-down time, aren’t they? And so we’re certainly not going to expect the adopted grandparents to be as parsimonious with the screen-treats as we are at home. No, indeedy … in fact, we’re that ruddy grateful for their help and interest in our children that they could sit both of the kids in the Bradford IMAX for 12 hours non-stop, for all we care.

Still, ‘Liz’ and ‘Matt’ do take their role as adoptee guardians very seriously and are certainly not walk-overs when it comes to grand-parenting.  So, it amused me somewhat to hear a report back from Liz, after an eventful weekend with my son and daughter.

LIZ: Well, after going to the splash park and having our lunch out, we came back and we were all a bit tired, so the kids had a bit of chilled out time. So we let them watch a film.

ME: Fine – you could have let them watch twenty. I don’t care. It’s the holidays! (*reader – note the ‘liberation hysteria’ and ‘pathetic gratitude’ present in my voice)

LIZ: Yeah, so then us girls decided that it was time to go and visit my mum at the old folks home – and so I said – right, TV off now. Boys … off you go to the park. Matt was going to kick a ball round with him or whatever.

ME: Okay.

LIZ: Yeah.  So we left the house to go and see Mum. And they – the boys … had a bit of an …. issue.

ME: Oh no? What..? Telly tantrum?

LIZ: Yes, well.  Matt was trying to get him to get his shoes on for the park and that .. but he couldn’t be distracted… and had a paddy when the telly went OFF and when he realised the remote control was missing.  Because I’d hidden it. Preventing temptation and all of that.

ME: Nice one. We do that.

LIZ: Yeah. But he wasn’t best pleased when Matt said to him that I would have hidden it from him, probably upstairs or somewhere.

ME: Oh … sorry. Was he really awful for Matt?

LIZ: No, he was fine. Came down off the ceiling after a bit. Then he turned round to Matt and said “I don’t know why she had to go and hide it like that, somewhere mysterious. She should have just hidden it behind the telly like my dad does. I would never have found it…”