Secrets

See these supposedly upstanding grandparents? They look innocent enough, the grandmother "strolling" the child, the grandfather giving "horsey rides". But what are their true colors? What do they let the grandchild get away with, when the parents aren't around?

I never realized this until now, but grandparents, to a certain degree, do delight in seeing their grandchildren do things the parents might not approve of.

I'm saying this tongue in cheek, of course, although we did have a lot of fun with Juliet today, when we thought we were letting her get away with things. We were sitting at the dining room table when she crawled off of her blue pad (where she's supposed to play) and onto the hardwood floor (which is impossible to keep immaculately clean, and might also have splinters). Passing under the dining room table, she looked up at us and grinned a conspiratorial grin. And she was off to the races, making it to the kitchen door before turning around to grin at us triumphantly. We picked her up there, and put her back on the blue pad. Why hadn't we stopped her earlier? We were darn proud of her! "Look at what she can do!" "Look at how fast she goes!" "Isn't she adorable when she smiles?" Somehow her parents' admonitions to keep her off of the dirty, splintery hardwood were forgotten when she wanted to show us just how independent she really is.

We had just returned from a long walk, and Tom and I were drinking water. Juliet saw us drinking from glasses, and she wanted to do that, too. So we helped her drink from a glass, then wondered aloud if she was ready for a sippy cup. Tom read about them online, and we found one in the drawer with her bottles, baby spoons and the like. Online they told you to encourage the child to play with the sippy cup, get comfortable with it, so that when they started using it, it wouldn't freak them out. Tom thought this was a great idea, so he filled the sippy cup with water and gave it to Juliet. Probably would have been a better idea to allow her to play with it empty. No harm done, just a little water everywhere, and a soaked onesie. Easily rectified, and Tom totally learned his lesson until he gave Juliet her baby spoon filled with pureed peaches. Yes, she wanted to try to feed herself today, too. Hey, what are grandparents for if they don't encourage grandchildren to reach for the stars??

Anyway, we shared all these adventures with Jeanne and Matt, who surprisingly took it all in stride. They're such good parents; they don't freak out about anything, unless Juliet is sick. And I think they know we wouldn't do anything to hurt our darling Juliet. Tonight at the dinner table Jeanne mentioned something that Juliet had done as being "normal". Tom spoke right up, "Normal? She is not normal--she's extraordinary!!" Just one man's opinion...shared by his wife!