Entertaining for Dummies

Without our awareness, fogeydom probably set in early for Curt and me as we became parents in our teens and took our grown-up responsibilities pretty seriously. We gave up partying in our early twenties (no, not immediately upon the birth of our first; reality took a little time to set in), went early to bed, paid our bills on time, sang in the church choir; in short, tried to be proper role models. The pitfalls of extra-young parenting are well documented, and while maybe not textbook cases, we muddled through much of it.

But don’t bust out the violins: As a benefit of young parenthood, we are treated to young grandparenthood. (Right now we’re at five and counting.) It’s hard to see any downside to our good fortune of being the grandparents of the two pre-adolescents who just spent the weekend with us. While undoubtedly we were never as cool as we thought, we marvel that Jack and Autumn need no coercion into hanging out with us.

So, how do you entertain a 13-year-old boy and an 11-year-old girl for a couple of days? Here’s how we did it:

1) Lay in a supply of brownie fudge ice cream.
2) Choose up teams to vie for the World 8-Ball Pool Championship, as an Eagles concert DVD blares in the background.
3) Laugh uproariously at fart and burp jokes. (I have to admit that this took some effort for me, having raised only girls, though it came worryingly naturally to Curt.)
4) Order a giant takeout pizza (but don’t try to sneak in mushrooms or green peppers).
5) Allow them to run down the street in a downpour.
6) Go out for breakfast, letting them order whatever they fancy without regard to the price tag on the freshly squeezed strawberry-orange juice that you would never have let their mother order, back in the day. Repeat at lunch.
7) Hug and kiss them in public, and make sure to call them by their pet names, Butterfingers and Buttercup.
8) Play Dominoes till kingdom come, but don’t let them win.
9) Make sure that Grandpa lets loose with plenty of crusty, slightly questionable remarks.
10) Own a drum set, complete with cymbals, and a couple of guitars. The kids will be unable to resist the allure of accompanying Grandma as she belts out the chorus of classic rock tunes such as “Smoke on the Water” (DUM DUM DAH-DUM! A fire in the sky!)
11) Help them hone their sense of humor by borrowing a “Best of Chris Farley” DVD from the public library.

In short, we just have fun. On a recent weekend road trip, my heart was warmed as Autumn remarked, “I’ve laughed until my stomach hurt three times on the way home!” Me too, Buttercup.