The Search For Enlightenment

Being up in Bristol a lot of the time now, gives me the chance to spend much more time with my grandsons, which is brilliant. This evening we went over to see Hannah and then on to see Charlotte, as it was my last chance to see either of them before their 5th and 10th wedding anniversaries respectively, this Friday.

Although I had seen Stanley, Jake and Zach fairly recently, they are all young enough to change almost day by day, so it was brilliant to catch up with their development. Stanley, currently an only child to Hannah and Jay, has always been a little character, with his own mind and attitude.

But he’s been going to pre-school for a while now and it was quite noticeable that his social skills are improving in leaps and bounds. He was much more outgoing than he was even a couple of weeks ago, and had Bumble and me playing hide and seek all round the house.

He’s also just had a new Spiderman bicycle, which he was proud to show off, riding around the lounge and kitchen diner. He a lovely little chap, and is all the more fun now he is talking with, and relating to other people so much more.

Round at Charlotte’s, Oliver, our one year old grandson, had already gone off to bed, but Jake and Zach were in fine form. Jake showed us his collection of McDonald’s Olympic Toys, one of which was a wheelchair athlete, which is great to see. Zach had a dinosaur toy with an opening mouth, which was good fun.

Sadly, the evening ended with Zach and I having a tearful, on his part, stand-off. He had given me his dinosaur whilst he played with Jake, but when he came over to take it back I asked him to say ‘please’. He refused, whereupon I refused to give him the toy. I cuddled him, whilst stopping him from taking the dinosaur, and asked him in a quiet voice, simply to say ‘please’ and that I would then let him have it.

In the end, the dinosaur was put onto a shelf, Zach went off to bed in tears and I felt terrible. Whilst I believe that manners and etiquette are important, I would never have put the two of us in the situation, had I know the outcome. Children must be taught the rights and wrongs of life, but I will be interested to see Zach’s attitude to his grumpy grandfather when I see him next.