Well-known fact #2: Being a grandmother is WAY better than being a mother.
Little-known fact #1: Mothers badger their children to have their own children because they know they'll get the joy of children without the frustration of raising them.
Little-known fact #2: You don't truly understand little-known fact #1 until you have children of your own.
When the family and I went to the Topsfield Fair on Sunday, it was hot and crowded. Because we went with my sister, her au pair, her children, and my parents, the adult-to-child ratio was 6:5. Not bad - we outnumbered them! There was barely any room to move, and we spent more time feeding and cleaning the kids than doing much of anything else. However, the kids didn't mind. In fact, they had a blast, going on some rides, eating food that was totally unhealthy, and simply playing together.
At one point, The Husband took The Boy and his Cousin to play some games. The boys were gone for about 45 minutes, and when they returned, they were toting some pretty hefty prizes: 2 frisbees, 2 large blow-up dragons, 1 large purple blow-up monkey, and 1 hideous brown stuffed thing that the Husband won for The Boy.
The Boy named the brown stuffed thing "Mike" and it became his best friend; he even slept with it that night. The next day, Mike was introduced to all his other stuffed animals (last count was 56).
Unfortunately, that's about as far as Mike went in our household, because The Boy left Mike on the floor....and any stuffed animal left on the floor is at the mercy of the trained killer, Molly:
Right after dinner on Monday, less than 24 hours after Mike was brought home, The Husband noticed a strange trail of stuffing in our bedroom. After a quick search, he discovered the carnage:
Quickly, he pulled me into the room and showed me. After he showed The Boy (which he really shouldn't have done) and the extreme yet expected panic/hysteria/sadness that followed, it was determined that the only feasible solution was to give Mike to Nana so she could fix it, much like she has fixed his Blankie countless times before.
(For the record, I am not allowed to fix Blankie. I'm not sure why. When I did try to fix it once, The Boy ripped out all my stitches and had his grandmother re-stitch it. Only Nana is trusted with his most beloved possessions, so it was natural that Mike be sent to her house. This is a prime example of the frustration mentioned in little-known fact #2, above.)
Unfortunately, due to the nature of the material (cheap) and breadth of destruction (the fabric was so pulled in places that you'd have to sew on new sides), The Husband and I decided our only course of action: Lie to The Boy.
So we told him we were bringing it to Nana and ordered a new one off Amazon instead.
Two days later, "Nana" (a.k.a. Amazon) mailed The Boy a better-than-ever Mike. The reunion was, as you can imagine, full of relief and extreme gratitude for - you guessed it - Nana's capabilities with a sewing needle.
We all have hopes for our children. Mine is that someday my kids will get the chance to lie to their kids so I can look like a rockstar.
