Helpful Grandparents

Along with the arrival of our new son came the arrival of both sets of grandparents.  They came not only to welcome John Xavier into the world, but to help us care for Carlitos Eli while we adjust to ‘Life with a Newborn.’  One of these helpful tasks was to take Carlitos to his swim lessons this morning.  As they were leaving, the main piece of information we repeated to them was that the swim diaper was the one with Diego on it.  Yes, this is going where you probably think it is going…

So they return from swim lessons and we start asking my Mother-in-Law how it went and she kind of laughs and tells us to ask one of the others.  Well, of course we start thinking the worst and imagining that maybe our son had some type of  ‘I have a new baby brother and I don’t feel loved anymore’ meltdown at the pool or something.  Then my mother comes upstairs holding what looks like Carlitos’ soaking wet swimsuit.  Okay, so he clearly at least got in the water so the meltdown couldn’t have been too bad…

She walks over to us and unwraps the swimsuit to reveal an enormous diaper with Lightning McQueen (from Cars) on it. (Yes, I am sure that you recall that we repeated ‘Diego’ multiple times to those crazy grandparents and that even someone living under a rock knows who Diego is and that he is NOT a car.)   Well then, they all just can’t contain their laughter anymore.  “Oh my gosh! You won’t believe what happened! It was the funniest thing!”

My poor son spent 30 minutes trying to learn how to swim while wearing a a regular diaper.  Have you ever seen (or felt?!) just how big and heavy a regular diaper gets when submersed in water? Well, apparently the grandparents weighed that diaper before bringing it home as evidence/comedic prop…4.5 pounds! That is like a 200 pound person trying to swim with a 60 pound weight around his waist/groin!  The best, or maybe worst, part is that Carlitos never complained at all so nobody even noticed until the very end of class when they have them get out and then jump back in.   Carlitos was apparently walking with his legs wide apart and really slowly, so much so, that they finally went over and checked on him and realized what they had done.  And yes, they still let him jump back in the pool with that 4.5 pound diaper on him.  Gotta love the grandparents!

I have to say, at least they were honest.  In fact, revealing this mishap made my father open up about something that happened just yesterday. Apparently they were all in the kitchen -probably doing truly helpful things like cooking and cleaning-and one of them (my Mother-in-Law, I think?) looked at the others and said “You know, they are so lucky to have us. They couldn’t pay someone to do what we are doing.” Now, I don’t know about you, but when I first heard this part of the story I assumed the punch line was going to be that another grandparent said “Actually, they could pay someone to do what we are doing. It’s called Hired Help.” Ohhhh, hahahaha. I think that would have been a funny punch line.

Not in our family, though.

The real story went more like this: As she was saying that, my father saw, out of the corner of his eye, a small flicker in the microwave…almost like a…Noooo, it couldn’t be? BOOM! Burst of flames.  OH MY GOD! Turn around! The peanut butter is on fire behind your head!

Yes, my Mother-in-Law had put the jar of peanut butter (with the tinfoil cover) in the microwave.  Thankfully, the microwave is fine and nothing actually caught on fire after the initial burst of flames, but WOW! Those grandparents really know how to punch up a punchline, if you know what I mean!

So, yes, it is in fact very true that we could not pay someone to do what they do…because we would have to actually dock their pay and then fire them.

We love you guys.