The first time I left my oldest child was for an overnight wedding. I had to go, but I was a total mess.
I was worried sick that something would happen to my one-year-old baby and really didn’t want to leave him for even an hour, let alone twenty-four.
My husband reassured me that I needed to learn how to leave him, and he promised that my father-in-law, my son’s grandfather, would take care of him, even if it wasn’t exactly how I would.
He reminded me that our son would be in good hands. When I got back home, all I could say was that both big and small hands were covered in chocolate.
In just 24 hours, my son picked up a new word, “choc,” bringing his vocabulary to three words. He couldn’t say “Grandad,” but he sure could say “choc.”
When my father-in-law saw my surprise at feeding chocolate to a baby, he explained in his soft Irish accent that Cadbury made their Chocolate Buttons tiny so that little hands could manage them.
He seemed to suggest that Cadbury knew better what my child should eat than I did. I don’t think I took that very well.
If I had been in a better mood, I might have realized that day that I still had a lot to learn.
This is what my father-in-law has done with my kids.
He has dressed two of them in each other’s clothes and never even noticed. They’re not twins!
He has put them in each other’s diapers, so one child was swimming in a diaper way too big, and the other had leaks everywhere. Remember, they’re still not twins!
He helped my eleven-year-old son dye his brown hair bright blonde, and it took two trips to the hairdresser to get it back to brown before school in September.
I lost the chocolate battle early on, and to this day, he shows up at my door with one suitcase of clothes and another full of candy.
My father-in-law has played soccer, cricket, golf, and football with my kids, even though he doesn’t know how to throw a football or even how to hold one.
He’s taken them bike riding and fruit picking.
He has taught them to plant vegetables