I suppose seeing how this is my first column of 2015 — whoops, I mean 2016 ... (It usually takes a week or so for me to get the year right.)
By far the best thing to happen in 2015 was that we were blessed with the birth of our first granddaughter, Brooke, which of course is really special, and it gave me column fodder throughout the year.
Believe it or not, Mary and I were invited back for our first babysitting stint of the new year just this past weekend. I am sorry to disappoint, but for the most part the evening was relatively uneventful. Except for maybe one thing.
Because Christmas was just a week earlier, Brooke had a plethora of new toys to play with.
One such toy was this rather delightful musical play station.
Blair, Brooke’s father, had a slightly different opinion on the darn thing (I cleaned that up a bit) because it was driving him a bit crazy. I figured because Blair is a new father and didn’t have years of fathering experience that I enjoy, he might just be overreacting a little.
It seemed that the music-playing whatchamacallit wasn’t working properly because it wouldn’t shut itself off after a minute of no activity. In addition to the auto shut-off problem, the manual switch didn’t work well either.
Soon after Brooke’s mom and dad were out the door, she thought it was time to fire up the music-playing whatchamacallit.
Grandma Mary will tell you I am no expert with the titles of children’s lullabies.
True to form, I couldn’t tell you the name of one of the songs the music-playing whatchamacallit played. There was a bunch of happy songs, some clapping, some laughing and even a few farm animal noises from time to time. At first it was apparent that rookie father Blair was overreacting to this delightful music-playing whatchamacallit.
It wasn’t long before Brooke moved on to one of her other new toys. Five, maybe ten minutes later I realized the music-playing whatchamacallit was still playing.
It was at this point I implemented my years of fatherly and now grandfatherly parenting skills and calmly gave the thing a few more minutes to shut off.
After what seemed like a lifetime — maybe another 20 to 25 minutes had passed — the delightful music-playing whatchamacallit was still spewing the same awful gut-wrenching songs from heck. (I cleaned that up a bit.)
Even Grandma Mary had had enough. She nearly broke the thing trying to get it to shut off, but to no avail. It just kept playing and playing and playing — the god-blessed (I cleaned that up a lot) thing wouldn’t SHUT OFF.
I gotta give Grandma Mary all the credit. When I came back from the bathroom, I noticed it was quiet in the living room. No songs, no clapping no laughing and most of all no farm animal noises. I asked her how she got the thing to quit. This is where grandma’s parenting skills trumped grandpa’s skills. She just simply moved the darn thing (yep, I cleaned that up as well) into another room and shut the door. Problem solved — at least for us. — Poor Blair.