Grandma and Gramps in charge

Well, we have done it, and no disasters.  Our grandsons were golden for us; no grizzling, lots of laughter, good night's sleep.  James only woke twice, which was a simple dummy problem: fortunately Mary-Ann had mentioned in passing that he goes to bed with one in his mouth and one in each hand.  I had assumed the ones in the hand were in case the one fell out of the mouth, but our little boy, humped up in the cot and scrabbling frantically with dummy in mouth, settled immediately when his empty hand was sorted.  And this is the child who didn't have a dummy at all as a baby!

Joe chatters endlessly, but was very happy to let us make grandparents' errors when they were in his favour: two or three breakfasts, playdough every evening after tea, letting me choose his clothes in the morning.  James also chatters but unfortunately the lack of consonants causes us some difficulty in interpretation.  This doesn't worry him at all: he very quickly pointed out to me that his toothbrush does not live on the window-sill but in the pen-pot, that his bath was hotter than he likes and that he wanted more cranberry wheats - and more, and then more!

The car journeys to nursery were great fun, the satnav lady providing a whole new vocabulary: 'proceed to the highlighted route', 'when possible, make a U-turn'.  Saying 'all right' in response to the left turn command caused great hilarity, and counting the exits on the roundabouts was educational.  The noisiest game was 'boing boing' as we lurched over the numerous speed-bumps on the private road to the nursery.  We were in the middle of this game when Joe phoned on loudspeak to see how we were getting on, and finished up joining in the boings.

On Saturday we went to Dawlish with Mary-Ann and Dom, after James's sleep.  It was cold but sunny.  The black swans were nesting in a cordonned-off area of the river.  The tide was out and the sun was still on the little beach at the very end of the prom.  Joe enjoyed a bit of rock-climbing, with Mum to coax him up the last bit of the slope, and Gramps to see him down the other side.  Their seats were still in our car, so we had to sing all the way home to keep them awake: they added 'five jelly-fish' and 'ten green bottles' to their repertoire, and Joe suddenly realised that the person calling out 'one fell off' controls the song.  After the third time of all five jelly fish climbing back onto the dish, we just had to start on something else!

We stayed for Mary-Ann's special slow-roasted lamb on Sunday, then had an amazing journey home with no hold-ups.  We miss them already, and won't see them before James and Megan's wedding at the end of May.  Hopefully it will be nice weather and the boys can enjoy the sand-pit and the playhouse.

Thank you Mary-ann and Dom for letting us share your children.  I know you missed them, but I hope you will feel able to do it again some time.