Who knew being a grandparent could be such fun

Lady D called me the Coolest Poppie on the planet last Tuesday.

We’d spent the afternoon with our grandkids, better known as The Twins, or The Girls.

The Girls are 4 (birthday in May), “I’m going to be 5 tomorrow” is a weekly refrain. They are the cutest pair of 4 year olds in the Milkyway, of that there is no doubt.

When Lady D and I go to their pre-school every Tuesday afternoon to pick them up, they squeel at the top of their voices as soon as they spot us, and all their friends and teachers are loudly informed that “Poppie and Nena are here”.

They come home with us on the back of my bike and I’m not sure who’s enjoying the ride more, they or Poppie and Nena. At various moments we are directed who has to win on the way home: “Poppie has to win first today and Nena can win second”. The other day we’d misunderstood the instruction and Lady D arrived at the house first, whereupon one of The Twins was inconsolable for at least 10 minutes.

Baking cookies

Normally we go to the park and play for a while where Lady D tends to forget that she’s not quite 4 years old anymore and then we go back home to get Dinner ready and where The Twins and I have started doing some weekly cookie baking.

Last week we experimented with food colouring for the icing for the cookies… Amazing stuff that food colouring, the green especially was an eye openener (btw, I’m not concerned about the health hazards of the various chemicals that produce the colours, I look at Keith Richards and figure we’ll never equal the chemical composition of his body and he’s still touring).

We also make very clear rules about not having any of the biccies before dinner, so as to have a moral basis for denying the Twin’s parents any of the cookies when they arrive (with our mouths full), and so as to ensure that there are at least a couple left to take home with them after dinner.

Lady D gets involved in the more creative pursuits once the biccies are in the oven and she’s managed to catch her breath after playing chasings on the slippery slide in the park. They’re producing drawings at a phenomenal rate, we’re going to have to open a public gallery, their work is obviously inspired.

Dry rice and bribery

I’ve normally spend the day prior to picking up The Girls, cooking dinner for the family, but luckily I don’t derive my sense of value in life by the level of appreciation of my efforts by The Girls, the standard comment is : “I don’t like the dinner”… Before they’ve actually seen what it is, we’re lucky if they sit down for some dry rice (The cookies come in handy here as a useful form of bribery)

After dinner I need to find each one of them in turn, several times. They never get enough of hide-and-go-seek, coupled with extensive instruction on how to go about finding them (the ‘where’ being less of an issue, given they always hide under the same chair).

And then it’s time to go home… Lady D and I have a ball… The parents less so on the way home I’m told, because The Twins generally throw a tantrum as soon as they walk out the door.

Tell someone who cares, I say… The joys of being the coolest Poppie on the planet.

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