I Want My Nap!

/ roughwighting

http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/gustave-caillebotte/the-napA few weeks ago my man and I take two of our son’s three little boys for four hours of fun, fun, fun with PaPa and Pammy.

We drive the 45-mintues to pick them up, making plans along the way: walk in the park, an hour in the new playground near our house, a swim at the local pool, maybe we’d even have time to bake cookies!

After car seats are maneuvered into the back seat, the 3-year-old and 4-year-old grandsons are strapped in, and we make the noisy ride back to our place amidst:

“When are we getting there?” “Where’s Henry the dog?” “Can we sit on Henry?” How does a dog get arthritis?”  “What IS arthritis?” “Can I have a drink?” “I’m hungry!” “How much longer?”

When we arrive, the 4-year-old plops himself on the lounge chair in our deck overlooking the Bay, puts his hand behind his head, and exclaims, “What a view! I’m going to sit here allll day.”

The 3-year-old has found the puzzles I store in the kids’ closet and throws the pieces of all three, together, across the living room floor.puzzle, nap, grandkids

“Man-to-man coverage,” my guy suggests. He takes the puzzle tot, I take the “unmovable boy” who now has found the bookcase in the hallway and asks, to my delight, “Read this one, Pammy!”

Six books later, the 4-year-old insists he wants to read all day.

Llama Llam time to share, grandkids, reading, books“Let’s go to the playground,” I suggest.

“No! I want Llama Llama Time to Share again!”

In the meantime, Henry the dog has a puzzle piece in his ear, and the man-to-man defense is weakening.

We squeeze in a 15-minute trip to the pool and a few bites of peanut butter and jelly, but it’s close to nap time, when we promised the munchkins’ parents we’d bring them home.

The 4-year-old begs, “can’t we stay and reeeeeaaaaaaaadddddddddd?”

The 3-year-old insists: “I want my mommy!”

So we hustle to the car and begin the ride back.

Five minutes into the drive a sound as loud as 20 chalk pieces screeching on a board emits from the back seat. My guy and I jump so high our heads hit the car roof.

“What’s the matter?” I ask, turning around to check on the distressed 3-year-old.

“I WANT MY NAAAPPPPP!” he screams.

Huh. I thought parents begged children to nap, not the other way around.

The 4-year-old consoles his brother: “It’s okay, you can nap in the car.”

“NOOO!” his younger brother retorts. “I need my MOMMY, then I can NAP!”

A tense ride ensues, with a strangled sound coming from the 3-year-old’s side every so often: “Naaaaaappppppp!!!”

In a record 39.5 minutes, we deliver our charming grandchildren to their relieved parents.

“You’re late!” our son exclaims.

As I unbuckle the blonde-haired, sweet-as a-snowball 3-year-old from his seat, he strokes my face lightly.

“Pammy?” he says softly.

“Yes?”

“I love you.”

Ah, I’m a good grandmother, I sigh to myself, until the little one continues: “But I’m not coming to your house ever again.”

Defeated, I give him a light kiss with a chuckle and hand him off to his mother for a long afternoon’s nap.

On the way home, my guy drives over the speed limit. I gaze at him quizzically.

“I need my nap, NOW,” he exclaims.

Which only proves that little boys never truly grow up.

nap, grandchildren, grandparents

Hmmm, is it nap time?

35 thoughts on “I Want My Nap!”

  3. Kids certainly say it like it is…and then the ‘is’ is something different, and that’s just as real and true, it that ‘now’! Loved it, though sounds like it wasn’t the easiest of babysitting experiences. Bonus that he loves being read to, which will hopefully eventually grow into him being able to read to himself and entertain himself for hours on end…:-) H xxx

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    • One of the reasons I love spending time with the grandkids (and I really do) is because of the pure honesty, energy, and love that comes out of young children. Too bad we can’t bottle that.

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  4. I’m sooo not supposed to laugh, karma is a biotch….ok, so I failed and I am laughing, sigh

    I KNOW!! I am counting it as identification as a PARENT, thusly I am allowed to laugh cause it has already occurred. Why IS that, that mothertype figures never NEED a nap?! The thought just never occurs to anyone, not even if we (ok I) have become a screaming shrew?!?

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  5. I laughed all the way thru reading this! Hit close to home with our grandkids (and their parents) visiting us for a week! Grandchildren are THE best, but they do keep things real!

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    • I knew you’d get a kick out of this. Taking care of grandchildren becomes a different life to itself – hard to desribe. You love these little people unconditionally, but they’re not YOURS, they’re your children’s, so the relationship is one level up (down? depending on the occasion). We GRAND parents are challenged (in a wonderful way) everytime we’re with our grand kids.

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  6. And here I’m always dreaming that I might be a grandma some day! You’ve set me straight–it’s not all peaches & cream, Grandma Pammy, is it?

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    • The funny thing is – that whole day with them is peaches & cream in a non-peachy way. I get a little annoyed at the dishonest, incorrect ‘grandparent’ books that come out saying how (angels singing here) WONNNDERFUL and elevating and sweet it is to be a grandparent. It’s estatically fun and hard, wonderful and terrible, exasperating and beyond the best thing in the world.

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    • Ha Ha. Yes, as long as you know your true motive. Our son acts like he’s doing us such a HUGH favor, allowing us to take the kids for the day, while I see him and his wife high fiving in the background. 🙂

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  8. This is a great story…..but you are! you are a good grandmother. So sweet that he wanted his mommy THEN he could nap. I commend you for taking the day to spend with them. They will come and visit again…I promise 😉

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  9. LOL, I can so relate; I will have four of my youngest grands on Saturday! Ages 8 and under!
    You never mentioned anything about the third one; he must have been an invisible angle!
    I can’t believe you would drive close to an hour and a half for just four hours! I think I would have had them stay overnight (lamenting that rash decision somewhere around bedtime!)
    I have kept all seven of mine at once and not much help from papa. I don’t do that often. Generally I keep the six older ones and the baby stays with mommy. They all play together so its not too hard, but the hurricane called grands is difficult to clean up after.
    What a good Pammy!
    (Curious, how did you get this designation? I couldn’t get mine to call me anything but grandma.) 😦

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    • First of all – SIX at one time???!!! I salute you, open-mouthed. YOU are the angel. Second, my daughter-in-law decided my name would be Grammy Pammy when the first one was born. I slashed off the Grammy part, and Pammy has been easy and fun for the boys.

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  10. Visiting and playing with my grands (6 and 8) is the best exhaustion I’ve ever felt. And yes, then I need a nap.

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    • Thank you – I’m not so sure about the gem part, but my guy and I get a kick out of grandparenting (always an adventure!) and then, when we’re alone again, opening the bottle of wine, clicking glasses together, and exclaiming, “Phewwwww, we made it!”

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  16. I think I’m reading things in the wrong order. How’d you become a grandmother right after driving lessons? Excuse my ignorance..I’ll be reading more posts now to get straightened out. Oh, and since all my kids have grown and gone, the thoughts of being a grandmother is a little scary. But I don’t want to be too old when they come. I was in the car with you, BTW. I’ve always told my kids my own personal hell would be if I had to spend eternity in a minivan with screaming, fighting, whining kids. Oh the horror!

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