Recently, I traveled to Washington, D.C., to take care of my teenage grandsons and their two friends while the parents got to play. I was so completely knocked out by how great these four teenagers were that I wrote a note to their parents. And sure, everyone thinks their grandkids are great. But keep reading and you'll find out why this was such a special weekend:
So, I’m thinking, I’ve got these four boys: two are 16 and two are 13. They’re all so much fun and cosmopolitan, living here in the very big city. There’s not a sulky guy among ‘em, which I think is by virtue of being with Grandma instead of Mom and Dad. Anyway, it’s just the five of us from Friday eve to Sunday eve. They’re all scheduled to work on homework all day Sunday (isn’t that sad?), but all of Saturday is ours to do what we want. The boys spend the evenings playing this updated version of the board game, Risk and the video games, including Minecraft. So, I told them on Friday night, “Tomorrow, we’ve got the full day, the entire D.C.-metro area and, within reason, unlimited use of Grandma’s credit card. Let me know what do you want to do and if it’s legal, that’s what we’ll do!”
They slept until almost 11:00 a.m. (Lord knows what time they went to sleep the night before), we finally got out of the house for lunch at 1:00 p.m. and then went to a local park where they played on the playground equipment, tossed a frisbee, played a tag game called “Manhunt” (I couldn’t tell the difference between that game and “Hide and Seek”), climbed trees, ran races and sat at a table reading and drawing pictures. I did not organize or encourage. This was all on them. It was amazing.
At dinner, we sat around and talked politics. I feel like I’m in an alternative universe. They were fun, goofy, respectful, informed, imaginative and had just enough of “boy kid” in them to find farting still funny. If these are the young people that will be taking care of our future, I feel like we’re in darned good hands.
