Enter the Grandparents

I love my kidlets, I truly do. But when I get caught up in the day-to-day stress that comes with three kidlets who have a highly contagious case of siblingitis that they keep passing back and forth, I realize that taking a break is necessary to preserve what is left of our collective sanity.

Enter the grandparents. Those blessed people love their grandkidlets more than life itself. There is nothing they would not do to keep my kidlets happy, relaxed, and safe, not necessarily in that order, and provided they are aware they are supposed to be keeping tabs on the kidlets at the time. It does not count as having Grandma or Grandpa watch the kids if they think someone else is doing so. Always make sure the adult in charge knows that he or she is in charge. Otherwise, kidlets wander off and try to flush their sibling down the toilet, style the dog's hair using Sharpie markers and blunt scissors, or strip completely naked and run off down the street. (If any of those sounds far-fetched, you clearly have not been around small kidlets. Just trust me on this one.)

Grandparents do not always remember what kidlets were like at certain stages of life, and even if they had perfect memories of such things, life is different now. If I thought peer pressure was bad when I was a child, it's nothing compared to what it is like now, and that's just one example. Thankfully, kidlets still try and manipulate adults in the same ways they always did, so the grandparents are already old (pardon the term) pros at fending off such attacks. Each generation is also a novelty to one another, and not dreading each other's visits because of their frequency.

So when my kidlets' grandparents volunteered to take the older two off my hands for a day, I jumped at the chance. The kidlets had been fighting non-stop, and their best chances of survival would be to go fight somewhere else and give Mommy a break. If nothing else, their visit to their grandparents' house would give me a chance to go buy a pair of earplugs. There is a carnival not too far from where they live, and my girls would love to go experience the wonder of kiddie rides, hopefully tire themselves out, get spoiled by their grandparents, and come back home to me all refreshed after their adventures.

It took me several hours to get the girls organized for a twenty-four hour visit with their grandparents. My middle child has pretty severe food allergies, and I had to pack up a day's worth of food, medicines, and emergency contact numbers in addition to the normal supplies one would require for an overnight stay. Then I had to schedule a panic attack in wondering whether her behavior would allow the trip, let alone the sensory-stimulating environment of a carnival. (In notable times past, she has freaked out on overnight trips to her grandparents, her uncle's wedding, and a number of times while merely walking to school to pick up her older sister. She is the master of the meltdown when she wants to be.)

But once again, the grandparents came to the rescue. They assured me that they were willing to take two cars to the carnival so that if one kidlet needed to leave, someone could take her to the relative calm of their house. They drove up here to pick up the girls. They even calmly talked to my daughter about how people rarely throw up on the rides, no matter what her older sister decided to tell her in order to freak her out. They had the girls call home upon arrival at their house, and both girls seemed to be settling in just fine, to my intense relief. We'll see how the carnival goes, but it's thankfully all on Grandma and Grandpa to man the ramparts and make sure the kidlets are safe and secure.

In the meantime, I am enjoying my alone time with my son, who almost never gets Mommy all to himself these days. I am trying to relax and just enjoy the silence that comes with sending the two squabbling kidlets off to play nicely with Grandma and Grandpa, who I know are appreciating their alone time with their granddaughters. And it's two-on-two, which makes it a little easier to prevent the girls from attempting to gang up on the usual one adult in charge. I am fairly certain everyone will have a blast.

I still can hardly wait to see my babies again tomorrow.