My wife Nancy and I went to Atlanta for Pesach (Passover) and stayed with our in-laws, Roz and Steve, for four days. Also staying in the house was my son Jacob, his wife Anna, their 3-year-old son Ben, 9-month-old daughter Lucy, Anna’s sister Rachel, her husband Gideon, and their 3-year-old son Zev.
Early afternoon on the first day, we all gathered in the living room. All three children were sitting quietly on one or another of our laps. How wonderful it was to be together. A tiny Woodstock filled with peace and love.
But that was about to end very quickly.
A half-hour later, Roz was kind enough to let Anna, Rachel and Nancy go shopping while she helmed the kitchen. After doing the airport run at five o’clock in the morning, in-law Steve went to take a nap. Nine-month-old Lucy was also napping. Not sure who snored louder. Gideon, a doctor, had patients to attend to. And Roz was busy cooking dinner for 18 of us.
My son Jacob said, “Hey Dad, I need to do computer work. Would you watch the boys?”
“How long?”
“Two or three hours?”
As if someone stuck a pin in my eye, I said, “Three hours? And do what with them?”
“Play. Take them for a walk.”
“Walk? Where?”
“Outside.”
Taking two boys under three for a walk is like taking unleashed chimps to a mall. Except chimps can be reasoned with.
Taking two boys under three for a walk is like taking unleashed chimps to a mall. Except chimps can be reasoned with.
Laying on the guilt, Jacob said, “Don’t you want to spend time with your grandchild and nephew?”
Roz, God bless her, jumped in. “Jacob, what is he going to do with two three-year-old boys by himself? I’ll help. Come on Mark, let’s take them for a walk.”
Roz and I spent the next 40 minutes pleading and begging the boys to get into the strollers. Both kids screamed as if we had attached a burning hot vise grip to their skulls and kept tightening it. Their shrieking hit decibel levels of 120 or more. That’s the level that can cause permanent damage to your ears.
With over 100 years of parenting skills between us, Roz and I found it impossible to get the kids to stop screaming and sit in the strollers. We finally gave up, but not before thinking about putting them on a Greyhound Bus to Chicago.
But our parenting experience didn’t completely let us down. We knew the best temporary solution to stop the madness. And it’s not through physical violence or threats. Quite the opposite. We decided we would bring in the greatest babysitter/pacifier of them all. The king of shut up – TV, lollypops, and cookies. Nothing beats cartoons and a blast of the white stuff. I mean sugar, not cocaine. More important than them OD’ing on sugar and cartoons is our sanity.
Still howling like a wounded prairie dog, we sat them on the couch in front of a 62-inch screen. We put out a bucket of lollies and Oreos. Grabbing the remote, I punched the ON button. Bingo! The screaming stopped. It was now as quiet as a monastery in the Himalayas. There they sat, with their eyes glued like two angels having a celestial moment. Sitting, watching, and sucking away on their pinwheel lollies. So Roz could finish her cooking, I told her I would sit with them. We three boys, now glued to the TV, watched Paw Patrol and Spidey and His Amazing Friends while sucking on our lollypops as happy as three pigs in a mud pit.
At seven pm, the kids’ bedtime, all of us grandparents sat peacefully drinking our mint tea while we listened and laughed as the young parents begged, bribed, and tried cajoling their children to sleep. Thank God for TV and sugar.
This was only day 1. Three more to go.
By the way, true story…After three days of non-stop high-pitched squeals, I developed tinnitus. And as of today, I still have it. I’ve spoken with a personal injury lawyer and was told that in order to sue the kids, I needed to find a lawyer their age. Tinnitus, if you don’t know, is a nonstop ringing in your ears. The bad news is there is no cure. The good news is it muffles my wife’s yelling at me.
God willing, “next year in Atlanta.”
Mark Schiff is a comedian, actor and writer, and host of the ‘You Don’t Know Schiff’ podcast. His new book is “Why Not? Lessons on Comedy, Courage and Chutzpah.”
