MG’s relaxed attitude toward Buddy may have something to do with the fact that MG can make Buddy mind him with little or no resistance and that the little guy is satisfied with a plain old dog biscuit for a treat. The grandchildren, however, require more patience and negotiating skills and much more elaborate treats to satisfy their taste buds.

When our Second Son and wife planned to take their ten-year-old second born to Washington, DC, for his turn to visit the seat of the federal government, they asked us to spend the Memorial Day Weekend sitting with their three remaining children and the family dog. I was certain I had hit a motherlode that I could mine for a blog post. Surely the little rugrats would misbehave, fight, say something naughty, and/or get into non-stop mischief. I mentally rubbed my hands together with anticipated glee.

MG departed for a three-day golf outing in the midst of what was a four-day weekend and left me on my own to wrangle the rugrats. He appeared immensely relieved to be on his way.

Today [Tuesday] is the last day of my tenure as sitter, and nothing has gone as expected. To my utter dismay, the diabolical rugrats have betrayed me on an unprecedented scale.

They are behaving beautifully. I don’t understand it. Either something is seriously wrong with them or they are engaging in a sinister conspiracy to drive me insane.

They play games without whining or fighting.

They pick up their toys and games and put them away.

They eat everything I put in front of them.

They shower and go to bed at night when told without asking to stay up later.

They actually did their chores without complaint when reminded.

They were even helpful to me with my chores.

What fresh hell is this? Thus far, the weekend is a complete disaster! I have nothing gross or amusing to write about. How is that possible?

Hold on—a phone call is coming in from the middle school. It’s my elder granddaughter, The Princess. She forgot to take her gym bag and phys ed is in thirty minutes. Would I please take it to her at school? At last, an imperfection, albeit not a drastic one. Unfortunately, she was so sweet and grateful when I arrived with the gym bag, I couldn’t be angry with her. Damn. I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up.

Just when I resigned myself to the fact that the weekend was a total loss blogwise, the one inhabitant of the household that I expected to be the least of my problems was the one who came to my rescue—dear, sweet, affectionate little Buddy.

I was alone with Buddy after the school busses whisked the rugrats away. I had an entire day of solitude to deal with the revisions to my current work in progress—or so I thought. Whenever Buddy needed to be let out to answer nature’s call, he had been trained to ring a bell. It’s a cowbell. It’s a huge, loud, annoying cowbell hanging from a cord beside the back door. It’s a very huge, very loud, and maddening cowbell that Buddy rang incessantly, destroying my concentration.

When Buddy came to the door to be let back in, he was covered with mulch and tree droppings that clung to his fur. I couldn’t let him in the house without an intense brushing to remove all the debris caught in his fur. No sooner did I finish than he sat down in the mess I had brushed off him making more work for me.

You’d think I would have learned my lesson and not let him out again, but that cowbell nearly drove me out of my mind. I relented and soon regretted relenting, because he did it all again.

This time, I went out to check on him and caught him in the act. There he was, lying in the mulch, not looking the least bit guilty for his transgression. I snapped his photo with my iPhone to document his guilt—mulch and tree droppings sticking to his fur—and then I proceeded to brush him clean again. Oh, my aching back.

Compared to Buddy the Baddy, my grandchildren were little angels. When those adorable, angelic grandchildren returned home from school, I greeted them with affection and renewed appreciation for their splendid behavior, feeling shame for wanting them to misbehave for my own selfish ends.

I told them what I went through with Buddy and how many times I had to brush him. That’s when they told me how much Buddy loved to be brushed. That gave me pause.

Um, you don’t suppose that since Buddy loves to be brushed so much that he deliberately rolled in that mulch just so I would have to—nah. He couldn’t be that cunning, could he? Could he?

Thanks for stopping by! I’m participating in Week #2 of the Feature Friday Block Party Blog Hop, which is co-hosted this week with author MJ Schiller. You can #FF us on Twitter with @JolanaMalkston and @MJSchiller. I’ve brought Old Settlers’ Baked Beans to the party – Enjoy!

Ingredients:

1 pound of bacon, cut up
1 pound of lean ground beef
1 large onion, chopped (1 cup)
2/3 cup of brown sugar
¼ cup catsup
¼ cup BBQ sauce (any brand)
2 Tb. prepared mustard (spicy brown)
1 Tb. apple cider vinegar
2 Tb. molasses
1 tsp. chili powder
1 tsp. salt
¼ tsp. black pepper
1 1-pound can dark red kidney beans, drained
1 1-pound can butter beans, drained
2 1-pound cans pork and beans

Directions:

Brown the bacon and remove from the pan with a slotted spoon.  Sauté the onions in the bacon grease until translucent and then remove with a slotted spoon and add to the bacon pieces.  Drain drippings from the pan; blot with a paper towel if necessary. Brown the ground beef, removing the fat as it cooks out.  Mix all the ingredients together, adding the beans last.  Pour the mixture into a large casserole dish or 9” x 13” baking pan.  Bake uncovered at 350° for one hour.

Serious Whimsy

The Camp Grandma Chronicles

Camp Grandma II is over. The campers, namely three of my grandchildren, have gone home. The house is now as quiet as the eye of a storm after the worst passed over. Macho Guy likes it that way.

For five days, I managed to keep up with a three-year-old, a five-year-old, and a seven-year-old. What little energy I have left, I’m using to write this post.

Oh. I must have dozed off for a bit. Where was I?

Right. Camp Grandma. We swam in our lake, we fished, we built sandcastles, we did arts and crafts, we read stories, we played games on Grandma’s Wii, and we had two movie and popcorn nights.

Macho Guy and I took our three little campers on a field trip on one of the five camp days. We visited a dairy farm to watch automated cow milking, we went to a cider mill that had a children’s playground, and we went to a local ice cream shop for a treat. The little campers had a blast jumping on a bounce pillow at the playground, but the highlight of the day was when they watched one of the dairy cows poop. The cow’s hind end was turned toward us, so the campers had an unobstructed view of the massive amount of poop exiting the cow’s derriere. Macho Guy explained that the poop was called cow pie. They giggled and pointed, and they went into hysterics every time Macho Guy said cow pie and I said poop. Kids. The things that amuse them. Seriously.

A few years earlier, during the first Camp Grandma, I had only two campers to stay ahead of—a two-year-old and a four-year-old. They visited after their new baby brother was born. Their harried mom and dad told them they were going on vacation by themselves to Camp Grandma on the Lake.

Yay! They were so excited they couldn’t wait to leave home. They woke their dad at six in the morning on the day of departure. Daddy opened his eyes, astonished to see that the four-year-old had dressed his two-year-old brother and had already filled both their little backpacks with their favorite toys. Nope, they weren’t too anxious to go on vacation to Camp Grandma.

They were pretty well behaved most of the time, but our camping fun was interrupted once by some very naughty hijinks. I told the boys they couldn’t do anything at Camp Grandma that they weren’t allowed to do back home. The four-year-old, who may someday have a successful career in politics, assured me without batting an eye that their parents had no rules.

No rules. Sure. Uh-Huh. I managed to keep a straight face and told him that Grandma did have rules and that Grandma expected them to obey those rules—or else.

Shortly after Camp Grandma was over and the boys were once again at home with their mom and dad, I got a phone call from their dad. He was finding it hard to keep from laughing. It seemed the boys got into trouble and the four-year-old made an interesting claim when his mom and dad disciplined him. He told them that he and his brother didn’t want to live with them anymore. They wanted to live with Grandma. When asked why, the little scamp said, “Because Grandma doesn’t have any rules.”

I laughed so hard I almost dropped the phone. That little stinker! It didn’t take him long to learn how to play one against the other.

Look out, Washington, DC; here he comes—for sure.

Let’s go see what everyone else brought!