telling it like it really is

Caring for young children can be quite trying, but the rewards are worth it.
“When everything is falling apart, they bring us down to earth better than we can,” said my friend whose granddaughters live with her and sometimes test her patience to the limit.
“She had just been BAAD day. I didn’t want to spank her, but after a while I realized I would just have to spank her. So I spanked her and put her to bed and sat down on the bed to talk with her about her behavior and how I missed the way she used to behave.”
When they had finished talking, the granddaughter said, “I am going to say a prayer and ask God to help me be like I am supposed to be all day tomorrow.”
Satisfied that her message had gotten through to the child, my friend tucked the child in for the night. Just as she settled into a quiet evening, she heard the child up, about and into trouble again.
“I got onto her,” she recalled. “I said ‘remember what you prayed and asked God to help you to do?’”
“I asked for tomorrow,” the child said with perfect innocence – justifying her bad behavior today.
She may not have made it through that day with a perfect record, but the child tried to have a good play date with a second cousin, an only child, during a recent visit. The adults sat in the next room half watching and listening as the grandchild brought out one dress-up outfit after another and suggested “let’s pretend” ideas to her cousin.
To every suggestion, the visitor saucily shook her head, “I don’t want to play that.”
Exasperated with the umpteenth rejection of her ideas, the grandchild stood up, put her hands on her hips and said, “Well, then, just march yourself into the other room and do what you want to do in there.”
The grandchild did a little marching herself the day she got off the bus and announced with great exasperation, “there is this boy on the school bus who winks and blows kisses at me. I can’t figure out what is wrong with him – other than he is retarded.”
Once she stifled her laughter sufficiently, my friend decided it was time broach the subject of the birds and the bees with her growing granddaughter.
“I asked her ‘what do you know about sex?’”
“There is no point in us talking about sex, I already know all that there is to know THAT,” the child assured her grandmother.
“I don’t know what it is that you know about boys, so tell me what you know.”
“You’re not supposed to be into boys until you get out of college. See, I know everything I need to know about boys,” the granddaughter said with an exasperated sigh.
In recalling that conversation, my friend added, “You know I believe she really does know everything she needs to know after all.”
It might have been enough, except subsequently the child came home from school and observed, “All the boys in class like me, except one who likes another girl best. One of the boys gave her a note and said he loves her so much that he wants to run off and marry her. And she doesn’t know what to think,” the child reported.
Neither did the grandmother, whose only advice was, “to say ‘yes’ just to get the ring.” And, to save the story for days when everything is falling apart and she needs a reminder of the rewards of caring for a child.