Grandsons

I have a couple of them. Colteton and Clayton aka Bubsy, aka Thomas, aka Arguman (more on that in a moment). Last Sunday, Terri and I watched them for 5 hours while Lyndy and Madison attended a wedding shower. It was the longest period of time we had watched them in several months.

The observations were many. First, young kids, especially boys seem to have unlimited reserves of energy. Clay will sit and watch a movie that interests him, but Cole is constant motion. He takes no breaks and is always looking for the next thing to do. At the 3 and a half hour point yesterday, he had worn Terri and I out enough that we needed a break, so we loaded the two grandsons into the car and went for a drive. Within 10 minutes they were both asleep. A good mind always trumps youth.

Clay has recently learned that he can get paid for doing chores. He likes money, but still does not understand the relationship between the level of effort and the amount of pay. Any task is worth a dollar in his mind. On Sunday he asked if he could do something for money. I agreed and asked him to go pick up trash in the yard. Knowing there was little to no trash in the yard, I grabbed a candy wrapper on the way outside.

He could not find anything to pick up, so I tossed the wrapper down while he was not looking. When I pointed it out to him, he responded "I really never pick up stuff that small". After searching the entire yard, we had only found 2 small scraps of paper, so I asked him to pick up the pine cones from a nearby tree and dispose of them. As we stood surrounded by 20-30 pine cones, he said "I don't see any". I began pointing each out individually.

That was the start of the Arguman nick name. He immediately claimed what I was pointing at was not a pine cone, or was not my yard. After a little coaxing, he did pick most of the pine cones up. Later, while walking with the boys, I noticed that after every comment I made to Clay would respond with an argument. I told him he was special. He said he was not. I told him he was special because he was my first grandson. He argued with that. The same was true with any topic brought up for conversation. Finally I told him he was arguing about everything. His response? No I am not! I let it slide but created the new nickname.

In the end, Clay was able to earn $2.00 on the day. $1 for picking up the trash in my yard. A second for picking up the toys his brother scattered through the house. He wanted another dollar for picking up the train and tracks that he had set up, but I refused setting the ground rule that he wouldn't be paid for picking up after himself.

One final word for our grand-daughter. Madison graduated pre-school last Friday. She is officially a Kindergartner now. Her "graduation" picture can be found below. She was very proud as were we. She begins her elementary education next fall. She will be an exceptional student. She already wants her Nana to teach her to read. After all, her Mimi (Dan's mother) will teach her to play the piano so her other grandmother should teach her something too.