Monday, June 8, 2009

The Aftermath

Our children have completely lost their tiny minds.

Since we picked them up from Mimi, they have been completely out of control. Out. Of. Control. Even BJ is at the end of his rope right now, and BJ has a LOOOONG rope (he's married to me, after all). We literally haven't gone 5 minutes without correcting one of them since he got home from work. "Don't kick her," "Stop that," "Give that back," "Sit down," "Take a time out," "Leave her alone," "Don't throw that," and my personal favorite, "For the love of God your voice does not have to constantly be moving, would you just be quiet?!!?!?!!?"

Please leave a comment and reassure me that ours are not the only children who lose their flipping minds after a weekend in Grammaland - where everything they do is cute, and there is no such thing as discipline, and chocolate and sugar flow like rain from the skies. Please tell me stories of when your kids have been spoiled for a few days, and how the first day and a half was miserable, but tomorrow is going to be fine because, otherwise, seriously... I'm getting out the wooden spoons.

Space cadets.

Please note - I am not blaming any of the good citizens of Grammaland for my kids' current behavior. You're just doing your jobs, as grandparents and aunts and uncles. They were good for you, which is awesome, but they saved up all their bad for us. And I am going to put them in a box and mail them back to you if they don't straighten up.

7 comments:

Rob Monroe said...

I'm concerned that no one has commented... We do not have that experience, but we're the neurotic ones that have never left our darling, perfect child with other people overnight. I will say that sometimes Abby does that just at lunch with my brother and his wife - lots of extra attention and hyperness results in craziness for us...

Amy said...

All the comments got left over on Facebook, Rob. I need to figure out a way to disable comments on FB and force people to comment on the blog itself. :)

Amy said...

Long of the short - it's not just us. Kids + people who spoil them = horrible behavior. Today seems a tad bit better, thank God.

Heidi said...

The s**t will hit my fan tomorrow after Grandpa and Uncle leave. I'm getting a preview this morning while they are at a ball game with Papa and Ted. Reg has NOT STOPPED FUSSING for the last 1.5 hours. Fed, clean, held, but GODHELPME not being carried around the house like the little emperor he is. I'm taking 5 minutes to blog and eat my lunch and he can just suck it up... and scream.

Soooo not looking forward to tomorrow when I'll be in your boat.

Got a paddle?

Mimi said...

I gave MG a time out.... I tried!!

Ginny said...

It used to take me a day and a half to get my kids back under control when they went to grandma's. Actually, it was grandpa. I would tell him that they didn't need to have any candy while they were there. He would listen to me, but then put it in a ziploc bag and 'let them take it home.' Then I would have to be the bad guy and take it away. I'm a grandma now and I follow my daughter's rules. We are all a whole lot happier and the kids still have fun.

Erin said...

I've got a weird situation. When the girls are with my parents, my mom and dad are very strict. Katelynn loves them, but my parents don't let her get by with anything. In fact, when we were home, my dad would swat Katelynn on the behind any time she did anything he didn't want her to do and she didn't even know what she had done! So that's annoying and I need to be up front with them what we expect out of discipline when we're home. We don't mind it if they're watching the girls and we're out and about. But they've (M&D) got to let them know what they've done before discipline sets in! And that's my job to be explicit about that since they're my parents.

And then we go to Matt's house, where it's basically as you described...no discipline whatsoever, Katelynn can have and do whatever she wants whenever she wants. Matt's talked to his parents about it and his mom tries to be better. I'll give her kudos for that. But his dad? Well, he "forgets" and has even tried to protect Katelynn from getting disciplined when she did something bratty when they were visiting us the last time.

When we were home in May, we were visiting family and friends all one particular day and we needed to go back out to Matt's grandpa's house, but it was getting late so we sent Katelynn home with Matt's parents with the instructions of bath & reading, thinking that bedtime would be implied. It wasn't. Matt & I didn't get home until 10 that night and there was Katelynn, wide awake, sitting on the couch with Grandpa watching mindless cartoons on the Nick at night network. We told her it was bedtime and she flipped out as you can imagine. Grandma had to rock her or lay down with her until she went to sleep which wasn't until 1am.

So you see, I have to deal with wide pendulum swings whenever we're home. Fun, huh? But getting things back to normal? It doesn't seem to be too bad. Katelynn seems to realize that once the grandparents are gone, life is back to normal for the most part. Now watch me eat my words the next time his parents come down and then leave.