Hey Sis, bad news...Mom and Dad are back!

What Now?

My family is sooooo very lucky to be living in the same town as my parents, and I say this very sincerely for those of you sitting out there thinking "oh boy, here come the sarcastic punch line!" But it's true! I know many, many couples who would shutter at the thought of sharing the same home town to habitat in, but for us it is wonderful.

How can this be you ask? Don't they drive you crazy, aren't they always telling you how to raise your kids, don't they say you your house is too small, messy, ugly, close????? How in the hell can you like living that close to them?

Well, my parents just may the the perfect combination of involved, non-judgemental and respectful. This, I must stress, makes their relationship with my wife, our kids and I about as pleasant as one could hope for. Example: My wife and I both had a triathlon race this weekend out of town. We were fully planning on bringing our kids and finding a babysitter to watch them while we swam, bike and ran our asses into the ground. about a month ago my folks asked if they could keep the kids this weekend because my sister was dropping her kids off on her way out of town and they wanted all four of them around to play and have fun. ARE YOU SHITTING ME? Who offers this? What was their real motivation here?

Nothing. That is just the way they are. Not only did they keep all four kids, ages 4-7, for 3 days and nights, but they had a blast with them. The weekend rundown went a little something like this:

Mini Golf
"Hotel For Dogs" on DVD
"Night At The Museum 2" at the theater
Dinner at McDonald's
Stops at the ice cream shop
Rides in Dad's convertible
Trips To The Park
Late nights and early mornings
Enough snacks to keep a small army moving for months

And that was just on Saturday!!! So you can only imagine my girls reaction when they were told my wife and I were back in town. That went over like a fart in church.

I am guessing that most kids don't live this close to their grandparents, and if they do they all don't have the same relationship that my kids share with their Nana and Papa, and for that I feel very fortunate. None of my grandparents are still alive, and I lived about 300 miles away from them when they were alive. Growing up we would see them about twice a year, and I remember how much I loved those trips as a kid. As an adult I saw them less, except for the one year I lived about 30 miles away from my grandmother, one of my favorite years of all time. My kids see my parents about every day and enjoy every second of it.

So thanks Mom and Dad...you are the world's best grandparents!

PEACE OUT DADS!!!

It's gonna be a good summer

WHAT NOW?

So, on day two of the summer of fun I successfully took all four girls (my two and their two friends) to the public pool by myself and supervised the whole crew for 2 hours and not only did we have a great time but:

a. there were no meltdowns
b. there were no lost children
c. there were no drowning children
d. all bathroom breaks went quick and easy
e. I kept my sanity

Things went so good I took all the girls to Micky D's for soft serve ice cream dipped in chocolate (only the king of summer time treats, the root beer float, surpasses the soft serve cone). By the end of the day my wife was a nervous wreck just thinking of all the things that could have gone wrong, but they made it, alive, and still talking to each other.

Like I said, it's gonna be a good summer, at least until Monday.

PEACE OUT DADS!!!

But just how paranoid are you?

What Now?

The summer of fun starts in just two days for me and the girls and I think we have a schedule in place. Instead of paying crazy high daycare fees and not getting to see them nearly as much (like we have done the past several summers while I was not enjoying my part-time-stay-at-home status) we have a sweet deal with one of our better couple friends that have girls the same age as ours. We are going to split days watching all four. From an outsiders view point it might see like more work to watch four kids for half a day then it would be to watch two the whole day. Well, not only are these girls best of friends, they also play extremely well together. When we have the other girls over to play it could be hours before I hear my name being yelled from two floors away for help. On paper it looks like the perfect plan for the perfect summer of fun. There is one small hitch that my wife and I must get over...just how paranoid is the other couple when it comes to watching all the girls. Will they lock all doors of their home and set the home alarm to maximum volume? Will they tie each girl together with bungee cords when they do leave the house? Will they go the extra mile and use industrial strength duct tape when just buckling them in for cars rides won't be enough? Am I going a bit overboard, because you see these all seem like reasonable options at our house. ALL ABOARD THE CRAZY TRAIN!!! I am sure they will do great with our kids, especially after the 2-hour seminar we have planned for them tomorrow.

PEACE OUT DADS!