Invasion of the Rug Rats

No matter what the almanac says, at our house summer arrives on July 1.

Around that time, the chores are laid aside, the fairs and parades kick off and our daughter from Dixie comes north to visit, her husband and three children in tow.

What we have here is not just a joyous family reunion, although it is that, but a clash of cultures which can make Iraq look like a hug-fest.  Mrs. Hunter, aka Hummingbird, also anticipates the invasion by grandchildren (3) with a mixture of happiness and dread.

In today's world, families are more widely dispersed and thus the grandchildren might not visit very often. They don't, therefore, know much if anything about the room arrangements or the grandparent's schedules or their preferences, expectations or rules-of-the-house. This is especially true when the grandchildren are scrappy little Georgia bulldogs and the grandparents are exhausted Buckeyes.

When I was growing up, we visited my maternal grandparents several times a week since they lived only a few blocks away in the Chelsea district of Manhattan. It was not unusual that we'd sleep over. Theirs was a relatively small city apartment stuffed with antiques, so we learned quickly there was no running inside and that "Gannie" and "Gamp" would have no tolerance for playground behavior.

My paternal grandmother lived alone in an even smaller apartment in Brooklyn.

She was Old German and wasn't about to put up with hot-dog munchers too fussy to try the ethnic dishes she whipped up in her closet-sized kitchen. This, after all, was a woman who had fed cadres of radicals and revolutionaries at her table when my grandfather was a bigwig in New York left wing politics. "Just eat it," she'd growl at us, and that's what we did.

Hummingbird's mom, on the other hand, visited her maternal grandparents and huge extended family in rural Michigan fairly often, and there reportedly was never any difficulty on her part as long as she (a) kept busy working, usually in the kitchen, or (b) kept out of sight at her cousin's house next door.

In the summer, her brothers would play outside if they weren't given a job to do, but since their young uncles always had chores to do, they were expected to help. Hummingbird said there were ALWAYS jobs for girls to do like helping tend the younger children, cooking, washing dishes, or helping with other household chores. In the winter, when not doing outside work, everybody huddled around the wood cook stove in the kitchen or the coal stove in the sitting room, hoping to catch some heat.

Now, today,there's the additional caution with young children of bringing them into a home which is filled with breakables not out of their reach and letting them loose around unfamiliar machines (stoves, tractors, exercise chairs, dial telephones!) which can get them into trouble. And, at our house, there are corridor walls composed of dozens and dozens of plastic file boxes filled with family history (genealogy), book research and publishing materials, certainly a barrier to youthful exuberance.

Hummingbird's wheelchair also requires free aisles devoid of toys and jackets and shoes and socks. Just as couples with toddlers have to "child proof" their home, we have to anticipate what happens if grandma's wheelchair get snarled in a Sargasso Sea of kid debris.

So, some tips to you other grandparents out there for when you hear the pounding of alien little feet.

1. If the youngsters are numerous and aggressive and unfamiliar with your home, and having them learn on-the-job will leave you a nervous wreck, rent them a motel room for their stay. You can visit on your schedule and they'll get what they want – which is a swimming pool, a machine full of carbonated beverages and long corridors to race around in.
2. If they visit during warm weather months, let them take the house tour but be assured they'll quickly get bored (unless you have a home theater or bowling alley!). So shoo them outdoors to play, making sure they're warned about the hazards of your property (road traffic, ponds and creeks, poison ivy, unfriendly dogs/cats, dangerous barn equipment or chemicals, etc.) Better yet, get somebody out there to play ball or explore with them and thus head off a holiday trip to the Emergency Room.
3. For the occasional visit, pack a picnic (or pick up fast food) and head for the nearest park or riverside for a picnic. The hassle of feeding kids unfamiliar (ie, healthy) food at a strange table with manners on trial is just too much hassle to endure when they drop by once or twice a year.
4. If you live with them, or are on an extended visit to their house, then you can attempt to train and discipline. You can also do this in your home if their parents are shipped off to Iraq for a 15-month tour. But otherwise, don't even try. Just enjoy the short time you have together.
5. And in the same way, don't try and stick too closely to a schedule. If you want to make a 2 p.m. movie, and the grandchild wants to sit down on the lawn and watch the bugs, go with his bugs. You'll save ticket and popcorn money and the kid will have just as good a time.
6. By all means, take your grandchildren on vacation with you if their presence will increase YOUR enjoyment of the trip. Our rule for taking a child with us on a major trip is: The child must be able to pack his/her own suitcase. But don't assume that a youngster on an Alaskan cruise, for example, will appreciate or remember anything other than all-the-Cokes-you-can-drink ticket or the dead thing she found on the wharf.
7. If the kids must travel with iPods and other electronic toys and do-dads, establish early that the gadgets must stay in the car. No grandparent wants to be presented with a plugged-in Tween oblivious to the world outside of his play list, or a youngster who spends all day poking away at a Game Boy.
8. Grandparents, after consulting with the parents, should stock up on the appropriate drinks since most little people don't get excited at being offered a V-8  (They already know from TV that  V-8 is actually a vegetable.
9. Grandparents might love to "chill out" and enjoy the peace and quiet of a summer's day. But grandchildren get bored early and often, and that leads to whines and temper tantrums. If you go to a lodge or park, find one that has lots of children's activities, including outdoor hikes and nature studies. Even cruises these days have programs which keep the young sailors busy all day.
10. If the visit is to be successful, grandparents have got to do their homework all year round. Not only what grade are the children in, but what are their hobbies, their likes and dislikes, their favorite music and their crushes in regard to various pop heroes and heroines. Granted, this isn't easy but if Hummingbird could attempt to learn all the Pokemon characters, you can find a more appropriate music CD than Benny Goodman for that rock-blaster teen who strangely shares your genetics.

Other ideas out there?

Daughter just called and said they're already in the mini-van and heading north. 

HELP!

(Gray Hunter)