Bad Grandma

Sandy Rettschlag

3 years ago

I always say that since I have become a grandma I seem to constantly be in trouble, or at least get blamed for some happening that the kids get me involved in.

I have a rather rambunctious, curious grandson who has always kept everyone on their toes. He is sweet, fun-loving, and as I said, curious and adventuresome.

Well, while babysitting my youngest daughter’s family on a Saturday afternoon which consisted of two boys, one of which I mentioned above, and their baby sister.

My older grandson was content to sit in front of his computer for hours on end. The middle son, Nathan, liked to explore and didn’t find sitting still to be an acceptable way to spend a sunny, summer, Saturday afternoon.

I had his baby sister out in the backyard with him and he was picking up bricks looking for bugs. He seemed totally involved and it was naptime for the baby. So, since everything was under control I took the baby in the house for her afternoon nap. In order to get her to sleep you had to lie down with her. While trying to get to sleep I heard a commotion in the living room and realized it was the boys fighting. This was a common practice between the two of them and not much thought was given to the noise. All of a sudden the bedroom door flew open. Brad, the oldest boy, yelled that there were two men with Nathan at the front door and they wanted to see me. Dear Lord, I thought Nate had probably got hit by a car or something equally terrible. When I went to the door I was informed that as they were driving past the house they saw Nate hanging from the garage door. The two men were in a jeep and immediately flew in the driveway to help Nate get down.

In further interrogation with Nathan, it was told that he wanted to see what it felt like to fly. So, he had a carabiner on his jeans loop, attached it to the garage door handle and pushed the remote button to go up. He didn’t think how he would get down unfortunately.

Thank God the two men saved the day. Nate said he was yelling help, that two women walked past and ignored him. He also shared that he thought I was a bad grandma as he was yelling and I didn’t come. I told you I always seem to get blamed for anything that goes wrong with my grandchildren.

This is extremely funny today, but it could have been a catastrophe. Just a couple of weeks prior to this little maneuver a little boy a couple of blocks away actually died when a garage door pinned him down.

I have always loved Nate’s imagination, but could have done without this little experiment even though today it is fun to reminisce.