Fire Hydrant

Today I picked up three of my grandchildren after school and brought them home with me for the night. J, the 17 year old, sent me a Facebook message the day before asking if we could stop by the library on the way home so he could sign up for some kind of gaming tournament. When I first got his message I thought he might be checking out a book. That would be pretty weird since his mother is the high school librarian where he goes to school and he can get most of what he needs there, but what was I thinking? Of course it was a Nintendo game he was interested in. I should have known!

My 10 year old grandson, B, had one question too. "Do you have any snacks at your house Grandma?" Uh huh. Nice to see you too - how was your day Grandma? Right.... Since it was Happy Hour at Sonic I offered drinks to tide them over till we could get home and he decided he might just live that long. But not a whole lot longer!

Miss S, the 12 year old wanted to know why I was late picking them up (I wasn't), if I knew she had cough syrup in her bag (cough, cough, fake!), if she could sleep late in the morning, if I knew that tomorrow she could change her earrings (it's been six weeks since she had them pierced, and if she could "rent" a movie when we went to the library. I asked her what earrings she was going to put in tomorrow and she said, "Dangly ones!" I think there might have been a couple or twenty more questions she asked that I've forgotten. My goodness that child can talk! She'd make a great talk show hostess. :)

Have you ever noticed that with grandchildren, or maybe your children even, that when you pick them up the conversation begins as if you haven't been apart all day, or in my case for a week or so? There's no, "How was your day?" or "Hi Grandma..I haven't seen you in a while." It's just "you got snacks?" or something similar.

Anyway we were driving down the highway drinks in hand when all of a sudden B screamed "Fire Hydrant". I jumped three feet and slammed on the brakes! "What? What's wrong? I'm not going to hit a fire hydrant...I'm in the highway!" It seems Fire Hydrant is a game you play in the car. It's quite complicated. You watch for fire hydrants and yell "Fire Hydrant" as loud as you can when you see one and you count them up. The final score today was B 31 and Miss S 19. And she had help from J and me! I think B can see farther than anyone I've ever known - he'll be a great hunter one of these days cause I swear I think he could see a fly a block away.

The first thing the kids wanted to know when we walked in the door was what was for supper and when. They're kind of picky but if you know what they like, they're easy. So chicken on the grill, mashed potatoes, carrots with butter and brown sugar, and homemade bread and they are happy campers. Add to that the cookies I baked after supper (they keep sneaking in and eating another when they think I'm not looking) and I've almost filled them up. Till bedtime.