Keeping a 6-year-old entertained when you're ten times older than he is

Think about that for a moment.

Sure, we as grandparents love our grandchildren. We really do. Most grandparents get to see their grandchildren for an hour or two each week (if they're lucky) and less so if they're not. Almost always in concert with a visit by the children who sired them. I know that was the case when Barbara and I first started out as parents. A Saturday visit and play date, or a Sunday dinner with Mom and Dad were the staples of our early parenting lives.

That was then.

This is now.

Fast forward 30+ years, and we're the grandparents now. Two things are now in play; the ability for us to be nearby each weekend is largely impossible due to our retirement lifestyle, and school vacation for kids these days has gotten out of hand.

Jace's time off each school year that begins in early August:

5 days – Fall break – late September

3 days – Thanksgiving break

12 days – Winter break for Christmas and New Year's

3 days – Just because in February

5 days – Spring break – early April

2 months – Summer vacation – the months of June and July

That's more than 3 MONTHS time when parents need to be off work, or provide for their kid's daycare. Most parents are lucky to get 3 WEEKS paid vacation each year; forget about 3 months! And decent day care is either unavailable, or prohibitively expensive. But what might be impossible for us to do on a weekly basis each weekend allows us the opportunity to take Jace for the extended school breaks in his schedule.

24/7.

More than 3 months out of the year.

In a 430 sq. ft. motor home.

And we're now 10 TIMES older than Jace is. And while Jace is ramping up his ability to do active things, Barbara and I are clearly trending in the opposite direction. But people say that keeping active keeps you young.

They're liars. Every damned one of them. Not when it comes to keeping up with a nearly 7-year-old boy when you're nearly 70 years old.

So we ride bikes. Me for about 30-45 minutes, Jace for 4 hours. Barbara and/or I sit and watch him ride back and forth for the rest of the time. Long walks a couple of times a day. Time in a playground if one is on-site (usually accompanied by lots of lifting Jace to grab things higher then he can reach). Barbara handles the education and craft stuff I'm not qualified to do. And she makes sure the Easter Bunny finds Jace even when he's not at home.

In COE parks we go kayaking. I do all the paddling, because as sure as the sun rises in the east, Jace will deposit a paddle in about 40 or more feet of water if he gets one in his eager little hands. He then spends the entirety of the kayaking journey with one or both of his hands in the water, providing drag to my efforts to transport him around the lake. And then he wonders why we can't stay out longer. I don't have the heart to tell him the truth that if he keeps dragging his hands in the water we'll never get back to shore again.

Hey, Papa! Thanks for doing all the heavy lifting back there!

 

We play with fire at least one night of his one week stay. It's a requirement because Jace needs to satisfy his pyromaniac tendencies with a stick and a roaring fire in a pit. No smores because that boy does NOT need any sugar right before going to bed.

Put stick in fire. Stare at fire on stick. Repeat for an hour.

 

If the weather and water are warm we go swimming.

And we rely on other campers. Yeah, I'm not ashamed to admit it. Jace being a VERY social animal, he wants to meet and play with every kid in the park. WE love to meet new people, even if they are half our age, especially if they have brought with them a new playmate or two for Jace. So we all socialize in our own particular ways. Even campers our own age are not immune from the Jace experience, as he loves to ask fellow RVers if he can see the inside of their rigs. We DO NOT know where that habit comes from; he appears to just be naturally curious, even if he does sometimes ask to see if the inside of their RV is clean 🤦 (facepalm). One younger couple this past trip wished we were their parents, because they thought what we do with Jace on every school break is so “wonderful”. I think the mom just wanted us to take her two kids on trips. We also set up a play date with his good friend Amie, who we parked next to for almost 3 months last year.

The one thing Barbara and I always make sure we do is schedule some downtime after an extended period with Jace, because we truly need the time to rest and recharge our bodies and minds, so no long trips after a Jace vacation. A couple of hours of travel at the most, and at least a week or two with no appreciable activities except for the occasional sightseeing day trip.

And while Grover loves his buddy Jace, he also ends up crashing each night and the week following one of Jace's visits. It's a beagle thing, I'm sure.

 

So that's where we find ourselves for this update. We have more COE-hopping to do in the next 6 weeks here in Georgia and in northeast Mississippi before a week in Red Bay, AL to prepare the coach for our long summer trip with Jace to the Northeast. Stay tuned!