Lights Out

It's really not the food that fascinates him so much although he does love drinking apple juice straight from the box despite his mum's admonishments. Mr. Two likes to play with the light switches on the side of the fridge. On-off. On-off. On-off. I'm sure you all know how that goes. Eventually we settle on something for lunch, and everyone gets on with it. Until the next day about the same time and same place. All the liquids and veggies in the refrigerator are frozen. A lot of tossing and cursing. Darn NZ appliances! Oh, what's this? The temperature controls have all been turned down to frigid? How could that have happened?!?

Not too many days later we get in the car only to discover that the battery is dead. Curses! What a bother. Not even sure what to do. See whether our helpful neighbor is home? Call the service station? Call our daughter with an SOS? Fortunately we remember that our landlord (along with probably everything he's ever owned) has left an emergency battery charger (fully charged, no less) in the garage. Lucky us! The engine starts right up. How could the battery have died with no warning? Oh, wait a minute. Wasn't the world's most indulged grandson "driving" the car yesterday? Along with every other button in the vehicle, he discovered the overhead light (three switches). Off-on. Off-on. Off-on.

I'm sure our children would have been reprimanded. Not that we loved them any less. It's just now that we're older, we know more about what's really important. We know the difference between a serious infraction and an amusing anecdote. We're not so tired - we're retired. We don't have to make or enforce the rules anymore. My God, we're the grandparents. What do we know? And besides our kids didn't live in New Zealand.