I don’t know yet if I’m the worst or best gpa ever.

The grandboy wanted fruit snacks, so I had him go into the utility room (with the light on), close the door and go “trick or treating” for them…

The grandboy, trying to type his name into a computer game:

“Mom mom I need to put something in here what help me mom heeeelp”

“Hey put your name in there. You know how to spell your name. How do you spell your name?”

“With help. Help me mommmma”

Mamasan is working tonight so it’s me tucking in the grandboy:

“Ummm gwumpa I’m thirsty.”

“OK. You are thirsty.” (See comment below)

“May I have some water, gwumpa? You get it for me? That would be great.”

I see a future of middle management ahead of this kid…

We’re in the process of acknowledging his needs but making him explicitly ask for assistance instead of hinting around. 
Clears up future misunderstandings and will probably help him get that raise or bonus when he’s out in the working world. 
If you don’t ask, you don’t get…!

The grandboy, while helping me do dishes:

“Gwumpa I NEVER drink old coffee (as he watches me dump out my thermos) blaughhh. You know why? You know why gwumpa? You know?”

“No, why is that?”

“Because I drink old coffee I’ll be old like you gwumpa I’ll be oooolllld”

“He he yep you’ll turn old all right.”

“Yah and den, and den I turn into a zombie and attack everyone and attack momma and she’ll get mad.”

“Yep better stay away from that old coffee then…”

I’ve grown to appreciate the fact that knowing all the answers is not as important as knowing the right questions to ask.

I’ll take a tip from the grandboy and use his two powerhouse tools of the trade more often: “what is that?” and “how come?”

Of course I’ll leave off the word, “grandpa” at the end of the question… unless I’m making a point, that is 🙂

One crayon up the nose of a rambunctious lad leads to a right bloody mess, a frightened school admin, and a confused grandpa.

The neighbour provides for good Saturday morning entertainment and education.

He has a tangerine tree in the back yard and for the last two winters has been donating a bag or two of the fruit to our household.

Grandboy and I are eating some, and picking out the seeds. Therein starts a vital lesson in survivalist theory: How To Grow Food From Seed.

The littleun drops our bowl of seeds on the ground and laments the fact that they’ve gotten dirty.

“That’s ok”, I said, “they’re going into the dirt anyways”.

“Ooooohhh I get it, haha they’ll be all dirty” was the reply.

So he pokes his skinny little kid finger in a planter I’m using to keep LAST year’s seedlings alive and pops the seeds in there, covers them up and we water them.

And then sits there for a few minutes encouraging them to grow. These sounds can be heard from the kitchen while I’m tidying things up:

“Go little seed grow grow!”

“C’mon you can do it”

“Gwampa why they not grow? Are they sick?”

The concept of “A Long Time” is yet to be learned 🙂

Two of the most influential questions to ask littleuns as they start figuring out the basics of cause & effect:

1. Who did this?

2. How are you going to fix this?

I’ve found this helps teach fundamental concepts that need to stick with them as they grow up – accountability and responsibility.

As they answer the questions, they come to realise that they own the problem, and they have to figure out how to recover from their mistakes.

If done gently they will learn that making mistakes isn’t the end of the world, and that will lead to more honesty as they trust your reactions.

This comes not from doing it right as a parent, but from my mistakes I’ve made as a parent!