burnt
Well-known member
A Piece I wrote recently -
Original Design
Changing Time
With our house becoming increasingly empty of kids, my mind is drawn back to times when it was still a bustling center of activity. Like one of the weekends that our daughter, Amanda, brought a couple of kids home to babysit. It's not too often that Monday actually comes as day of rest (unless you're a preacher) but by Friday night of that weekend of barely controlled chaos, Monday loomed in the distance like a day off!
We had previously been "extended family" to these little guys - one, 6 years old at the time and the other, 20 months. So that particular weekend, the parents of these two little brothers were left in the lurch when their babysitter bailed on them at the last minute. Not wanting to cancel their much-anticipated weekend away together, we got the call "Could you…?" No matter that she was working for about six nights in a row, Amanda said, sure, they could come here, and with deep misgivings, I understood the shared care-giving implications.
George, the brilliant 6 year old, just loves coming to our farm and is easy to please with a tractor ride across the field or game on the kitchen floor. Willy, the "baby", tends to vacillate between Jekyll and Hyde and either grunts out his unintelligible wishes or, from a cast iron lung, wails out his displeasure with life. By 8 o'clock Friday evening I thought that depositing him on the side of the road might be an acceptable care plan.
Thank goodness those little kids really bonded with our grown-up ones and vice versa. Yet even they got a bit frazzled by the frenzied pace of wee ones underfoot, each day being jammed with endless activity and constant kid chatter. My wife excelled with them, but a Sunday afternoon family reunion commanded her time. So, that left just our oldest son, Jeremy, and me to look after them while the nurse finally crashed for a few hours of sleep in the afternoon before her impending night shift.
After a short kiddie-nap, Jeremy took George for a 4-wheeler ride leaving Jekyll-and-Hyde Willy in my care. I figured I could handle that, even if it meant wearing a clothespin on my nose until Amanda woke up, should a "change" be required. After an initial period of chilled relationship earlier in the weekend, Willie and I had by now created a semi-amicable truce. Thus, we were hunkered down at the kitchen table having a relatively peaceful exchange while stuffing our faces and sipping on our bottles, following the ages-old remedy for building manly rapport.
As the various possibilities of this image struck me, I texted Jeremy with these words to assure him that all was well in the house- "We are sitting at the table eating pretzels, nursing our bottles and communicating in grunts like real men do…". As I hit send, all the accumulated tension of the weekend found release in a real belly busting outburst of laughter, Willy heartily joining with his merry little peals! What a moment. A special bond happened right there and we are now best buds for life. Have another one Willy… And not long after they were collected by their parents, I was missing the little rascals. What a weekend. And if I could survive that clothespin, a quiet house is a manageable change.
JES/03/11/13
Original Design
Changing Time
With our house becoming increasingly empty of kids, my mind is drawn back to times when it was still a bustling center of activity. Like one of the weekends that our daughter, Amanda, brought a couple of kids home to babysit. It's not too often that Monday actually comes as day of rest (unless you're a preacher) but by Friday night of that weekend of barely controlled chaos, Monday loomed in the distance like a day off!
We had previously been "extended family" to these little guys - one, 6 years old at the time and the other, 20 months. So that particular weekend, the parents of these two little brothers were left in the lurch when their babysitter bailed on them at the last minute. Not wanting to cancel their much-anticipated weekend away together, we got the call "Could you…?" No matter that she was working for about six nights in a row, Amanda said, sure, they could come here, and with deep misgivings, I understood the shared care-giving implications.
George, the brilliant 6 year old, just loves coming to our farm and is easy to please with a tractor ride across the field or game on the kitchen floor. Willy, the "baby", tends to vacillate between Jekyll and Hyde and either grunts out his unintelligible wishes or, from a cast iron lung, wails out his displeasure with life. By 8 o'clock Friday evening I thought that depositing him on the side of the road might be an acceptable care plan.
Thank goodness those little kids really bonded with our grown-up ones and vice versa. Yet even they got a bit frazzled by the frenzied pace of wee ones underfoot, each day being jammed with endless activity and constant kid chatter. My wife excelled with them, but a Sunday afternoon family reunion commanded her time. So, that left just our oldest son, Jeremy, and me to look after them while the nurse finally crashed for a few hours of sleep in the afternoon before her impending night shift.
After a short kiddie-nap, Jeremy took George for a 4-wheeler ride leaving Jekyll-and-Hyde Willy in my care. I figured I could handle that, even if it meant wearing a clothespin on my nose until Amanda woke up, should a "change" be required. After an initial period of chilled relationship earlier in the weekend, Willie and I had by now created a semi-amicable truce. Thus, we were hunkered down at the kitchen table having a relatively peaceful exchange while stuffing our faces and sipping on our bottles, following the ages-old remedy for building manly rapport.
As the various possibilities of this image struck me, I texted Jeremy with these words to assure him that all was well in the house- "We are sitting at the table eating pretzels, nursing our bottles and communicating in grunts like real men do…". As I hit send, all the accumulated tension of the weekend found release in a real belly busting outburst of laughter, Willy heartily joining with his merry little peals! What a moment. A special bond happened right there and we are now best buds for life. Have another one Willy… And not long after they were collected by their parents, I was missing the little rascals. What a weekend. And if I could survive that clothespin, a quiet house is a manageable change.
JES/03/11/13
