The Senator had an educational stayover with us grandparents. For example, he learned that: (a) There is a new, reversed Oreo cookie, with vanilla exterior and chocolate interior and that these may be eaten for breakfast independently of toast and cereal and (b) when Mom asks, “How did (anything) happen?" the new best answer is to shrug, point and say, “Fickle finger of fate.” It’s amazing how a kid absorbs words when he knows their purpose—to flummox Mom.
During his overnight, The Senator also studied the advanced scooter techniques of older cousins M and J, with whom he could not keep up. Not yet, anyway. After M and J departed, The Senator remained outside in the dark to practice scooting. Before breakfast, he was outside on the scooter again and, literally and figuratively, up to speed when The VP arrived to retrieve him. The scooter went home with The Senator for a visit of a couple of weeks. Prediction: A rapid learning curve will lead to warp speed by October. With scooting mastered, The Senator no doubt will push back his frontier to include the full length of the driveway, way out of range of The Chariman’s radar. Hey Mom, at least those scooter wheels are too small to roll on the gravel road leading “to infinity and beyond.” That will have to await a two-cycle dirt bike.
I know, I know, The Senator likes to remind you that there are no rules at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. It’s not that we’re indulgent; we just don’t need them. In the matter of washing hands, for example. The Senator hurries unbidden into the bathroom as if magnetically drawn to The Green Goddess’s array of two kinds of bathroom soap—one a bar, the other a pump container. “I washed my hands with both soaps, just to be certain,” he explained afterward.
Give us The Governor for a weekend, and we’ll return him to you twirling as he trills, “The hills are alive with the sound of music,” instead of, belting out, “He rode a blazing saddle/He wore a shining star!” (Nah ... not really ... a "Blazing Saddles" attitude is much is better.)