In training ...

The photo below, which is courtesy of Hardage Fine Art Photography, is of Papa Mike, aka PikeMike, and grandsons Vincent (center) and Jack. It reflects their shared passion for trains. Hope to get a photo soon of the caboose, newcomer Luke, who spends most of his time nursing, belching and other bodily functions, when he's not sleeping, to check out trains.

Two peas from same pod, opposite poles

People who wonder whether you can love two grandchildren, or more, as much as the first either don't have grandkids or aren't paying attention.
Maybe it would be challenging if, for instance, children were cookie-cutter duplicates. But God throws away the mold every time, and it's kind of like putting a quarter in a gum-ball machine (remember when it was a penny?): You never know for sure exactly which one you're going to get, just like you might discover how different kids' personalities are.
Oh, some people may say that siblings are like two peas in a pod, and that might be true in some respects, such as looks, hair color, eye color, six toes (just kidding). But that doesn't make them podlings.
I've got two sibling grandsons who are like night and day, oil and water, hot and cold, black and white, up and down, in and out (well, truth be told, they both have innies, but I guess most of us do, anyway).
Here are some examples of how the lads, two years separated at birth, wax and wane, yin and yang, yo and yo:
* Vincent, who is 4: A little shy and introspective from the start.
* Jack, who is 2: Not quite as shy, and outgoing from the get-go.
* Vincent: Approached his first birthday cake gingerly, avoiding messing himself or the cake.
* Jack: Dived into his first birthday cake, digging into the blue frosting and smearing it all over. Himself. The house. The neighborhood. (Well, perhaps I hyperbolize, but CSI could have found a lot of evidence even without its blue lights.)
* Vincent: HATES to get his hands sticky or dirty or messy, and immediately asks for wipes or a washrag — anything, and fast — to clean them.
* Jack: Doesn't mind at all when his hands get dirty, and runs for the hills when you approach him with a wipe.
* Vincent: Will eat anything — he'll at least try everything — except dirt.
* Jack: Will eat almost anything and dirt.
* Vincent: He LOVED mashed potatoes as a wee one. Indeed, even though he's largely Italian, he inhaled ’em like an Irishman before the potato famine hit.
* Jack: This little Italian wouldn't care if the potato famine had wiped the tubers off the Earth. Spits ’em out like he is a volcano and they are lava. (Potatoes are one of the few things he won't eat, although he might eat dirt off of raw ones.)
* Vincent: Weaned slowly from breastfeeding, and battled to stay at the trough.
* Jack: Weaned more quickly, although not without a fight. (Even as recently as a couple of weeks ago, he tried to con his mom into a swig or two.)
* Vincent: Red state.
* Jack: Blue state.
* Vincent: Momma's boy, in a good way.
* Jack: Momma's boy, also in a good way. (On this, they are like two peas from the same pod.)
* Vincent: Amazingly, from the very beginning, rarely has messed with knickknacks, or invaded cupboards and such, to the extent that we were spoiled.
* Jack: From the very beginning, has been a magnetized tornado, zeroing in on knickknacks and exploring cupboards like a whirling dervish.
* Vincent: Rush Limbaugh ditto-head.
* Jack: Dan Rather replacement head.
* Vincent: Initially cautious, even reticent, around water in pools and oceans, although he's warming up to it now, with water wings and floats.
* Jack: Initially careless around water and throws such a fit when he can't just jump in that it appears he thinks he can walk on water.
* Vincent: Darts about like a balloon, inquisitive but cautious, maintaining a safe distance from sharp objects.
* Jack: Bulls about like a 16-pound bowling ball, careening from one dangerous alley to the next.
* Vincent: Frasier Crane.
* Jack: Rocky Balboa.
* Vincent: Richard Gere in An Officer and a Gentlemen or, perhaps, Pretty Woman.
* Jack: John Belushi in Animal House.
I could go on and off, over and under, etc. and yada, but you get the drift: Every grandkid is different and that's what makes this such a grand life.

First kid's life is smoother than a baby's butt

The first kid has it sooooooooooo good. I speak from experience, being a second child, although even the firstborn back when granddad was a lad didn't have it nearly as cushy as today's.
Speaking of cushy, let's talk tushie. Take diapers. PLEASE. Back then, they were cloth, starting off white and as soft as new-fallen snow. But after hundreds of washings in coarse soaps long before softeners, they eventually ended up grayed and as rough as sandpaper, carrying potential to lacerate a baby's bum like cat claws slash lace curtains.
Now, of course, there are not only diaper services that deliver fluffy delights but also disposable diapers that tickle a tush with comfort.
But WAIT, as a Ronco commercial would say: There's MORE!
Although my memory fails me on lots of things now, especially diapers, I would guess that once in awhile, I probably was slapped into a diaper that had been flapping on the line in the icy winds of a cold Nebraska town. No doubt, Mom's hands were a tad chilly, too, on occasion.
But experiences like that toughened us up to face this cruel world, where some days are colder than a well-digger's . . . well, let's just say some days are really cold.
Nowadays, babies move from the womb to a room, full of modern conveniences.
Such as baby wipe warmers. Of course, baby wipes were invented for the convenience of adults, not kids, but the wipe warmers are nothing but an over-indulgence that could send an infant onto the pampered road to perdition.
Some inventor must have had a frightful, emotionally scarring incident as a baby, when his poor little derriere got a splash of icy water during a changing of the rear guard. So he invented a machine to warm the wipes.
Today's parents, those who said they never would make the same mistakes their parents made, made the mistake of buying into the charade that wipes need to be warmed like hot, moist napkins in a rib joint.
Then there's the diaper disposer, in which you thrust the used diaper, which then is smashed and rendered stenchless. Oh, it's not a bad idea, but it takes the challenge out of life (and it's much more expensive than using the plastic sleeves the newspaper comes in, like I do for the grandkids' diapers).
Way back when, we used to just slosh the diapers in the toilet before tossing them into the laundry. Even disposables got a rinsing before depositing in the garbage. (I learned the hard way not to let a disposable go down the toilet, when my older daughter flushed my son's diaper, which got caught in an elbow in the sewage line under the concrete in the basement, which then was flooded with . . . well, you can imagine.)
If you think I've strayed from the original topic, of first kid vs. second, not so. Parents often are studiously overprotective of the firstborn, while the net disappears with each ensuing child.
And I find it interesting that grandson Vincent, firstborn in his family, benefited from the baby wipe warmer, while his little brother, Jack, has no such comfort. It must not have made it to the hand-me-down stage, getting lost in the shuffle of life.
As for my own experiences as a second child, there was the little matter that I'm still peeved about that my older sister always got a present on my birthday, presumably so she wouldn't feel slighted, but I never got a present on her birthday.
And I vividly recall my fifth birthday, when I was afraid to go to sleep because I suspected that my dad would let his youngest son, also my younger brother (but sometimes, my cousin), take my new fishing pole back to his house with his mom and dad, my aunt (Dad's sister) and uncle. (Intrigued about the tangled branches of that family tree? Maybe I'll tell you about it sometime.)
Meantime, I think it would be nice if all of us second-born could tweak and enforce the biblical notion so that the firstborn would become last.

When a rule is broken, the fix is in

Here's a topic that landed me in the doghouse with a couple of readers when I addressed it in The Grandfather Clause in The Palm Beach Post. One even said I'm such a lousy grandfather that I'd never be allowed to take care of her kids. Well, all-righty, then.
I'm kind of comfortable in the doghouse, so I'll try my luck here, too:
My stepdaughter, Melissa, has chosen to be a stay-at-home-mom, after proving her mettle as a marketing wiz before Vincent became her firstborn son.
If she ever decides to go back the easier work in the business world, she need not apply at Coca-Cola because her Saturday Rule would flatten its fizz.
She conjured up the rule one Saturday when Vincent remarked that he felt a little sick and perhaps needed a drink of Coke. He had heard her say, when she had an upset stomach, that she needed a swig of Coke and he obviously had filed the info away.
On the day he sprung the canard, she told him that he should not fib to get things he wanted and they struck a deal: He could have Coke one day a week, Saturday.
For awhile, he asked, almost daily, "Is today Saturday?"
He doesn't have to ask it on Friday, though, because that's the day he spends with us and we have different rules. (Nah-nah-nah-nah-naahhhh-nah.)
One Friday, Melissa called to check on him and asked what he was doing.
"He's having a Coke float," I said.
After momentary, slightly chilled, silence from the other end, she said, "But it's not Saturday."
"But he's here," said I, feeling rather mischievous about my chicanery. After all, even if Coke rules, rules are made to be broken.
I since have started plying him with root beer floats not out of fear of his mom but because I am a float purist and root beer makes the best floats. I just hadn't had any that first day I decided to introduce the lad to floats, so I tried to see whether things went better with Coke.
I feel compelled to say that was not really a devious move on my part but rather fulfilling a destiny, a prime directive for grandparents: Spoil the grandkids.
While we're on the food wagon, I have a few grandfatherly words of advice for menu selections. Vincent and I came up with a perfect eating guide during an outing when he was about 2 1/2.
For lunch, stop at Dunkin’ Donuts and buy a couple of dozen holes. He likes to eat in, so he picked out a own plastic chair and scooted it over to a table, although I had planned to take the holes home.
After you and the child have eaten as many holes as you possibly can, if you forgot to check out the rest of the strip mall before, go outside and look to the right and to the left.
If you're lucky, the Dunkin’ Donuts-Baskin-Robbins connection will put a multiflavored ice cream shoppe right next door.
Chances are, you're ravenous: After all, you've been eating only holes. So you go in and order up some ice cream. I lean toward the pumpkin pie flavor, and Vincent likes blueberry cheesecake. Don't get in a rut, though; mix and match. Vary whether you have a cone or dish. And try a combo: big cone and little dish, or vice versa.
Eat to your hearts' content. Afterward, you'll need to go into the restroom and clean off the melted ice cream; sometimes, the strip mall will have a hose outside and that will work faster.
On your way home, you might want to stop at the Dairy Queen if you're still a little hungry.
Even when you're not having fast food, it's your grandparenting duty to avoid having the child succumb to a food fast while in your care.
So what if he has a little buzz on when you drop him off at home. That's the parents' problem, eh?

You could do slow burn over fast food

There's no such thing as fast food when small grandchildren are involved.
That's another one of many things I didn't notice when my own kids were little, back when a family of five could eat at fast-food spots for less than 10 bucks. As I recall, it seemed as if our visits there were actually fast, in addition to cheap.
Maybe that was because, as a parent, you're juggling so many activities and kids that everything is a blur, and maybe it just seemed fast. But as a grandparent, you often have just one, maybe two, kids for a few hours, so you've got time to sit back and watch things at a slower pace.
Unfortunately, kids can dawdle, and that "fast" stop can take an hour as the grandchild takes a bite, then checks out the toy that came with the meal, then watches a kid at the next booth, then takes a bite, then makes handprints on the window, then takes a swig of soda, then spills pop, then tries to con you into letting him go to the playground, then takes a bite, then checks out the toy, then, well, you get the picture: It can seem as if you went for lunch and left after dinner.
Sooooo, here's a grandparenting tip to ignore at your own peril: Just because a child can draw out a meal at a quick joint where you find nothing appealing on the brightly lighted menu behind the counter doesn't mean that he will be patient at your favorite sit-down-and-peruse-the-menu-in-your-hands restaurant.
Kids' attention spans are attuned to their needs, not yours, and slow-food restaurants provide a lot of opportunities for acting out, between greeting your server, then waiting for the water, then waiting to order, then waiting for the crackers to arrive to tide over the grandchild, then eating your salad, then asking for more bread, then rooting around under the table for the crayons the child dropped, then asking how long your order will be, then flipping a coin with your grandspouse to see who takes the kid outside for a walk till the food arrives, then knowing your entree is getting cold as you cut the grilled-cheese sandwich into manageable bites, then hoping your spouse doesn't say yes when the server asks whether you want coffee, then being foolish enough to believe dessert will quiet the child when the wait actually gives the child more time to want to get up and run around the restaurant.
By then, of course, your table looks like a disaster area and you feel so guilty that you leave a huge tip. The server might feel like a winner, until discovering where all the cracker crumbs and extra breadsticks ended up, under the table.
Meanwhile, your dream of a relaxing meal in a soothing setting has turned into a nightmare that leaves you wishing you had settled for a tasteless, but fat-laden, burger at a fast-food joint.
By the way, this has never happened to me; my grandkids are angels.

Let grandkids shop till you drop

Shopping with small grandchildren might seem like inviting disaster, considering tantrums you might have seen or heard from Aisle 9 or in the checkout line.
But it can have its moments. For one thing, it slows the process. I'm list-oriented, so I jot down what I intend to buy. Then, my male instincts kick in as I determine the shortest route to what I want, map which store or mall entrance to go in, then psyche myself up for the hunt.
I don't dawdle at each rack, playing tag with the clothes, like many wimmin shoppers do. I follow my mapped route without veering (except to go to the bathroom), make the kill, mount it on the fender and head home.
I'm in and out while the car is still warm, even when I'm up North in the middle of winter.
However, I have learned to slow down when I take grandsons Vincent or Jack along. Everything except me is new to them, and they like to dillydally. So I make sure I don't have anything urgent to do, so I can be patient and let them roam the store at will.
For example, 4-year-old Vincent always has insisted on sitting in the go-cart and playing with the balls of all sorts at the sports store, and Jack, at 2, is following the same pattern. It's easier to go with the flow and watch the show than try to hurry them along.
I don't know why Vincent likes to disappear into a rack of clothes, but I sure was happy to see him emerge from one the first time I lost him in a store. It's not that I'm afraid of the cops charging me with neglect; that would be nothing compared with the wrath of his mom if I lost him.
Once in awhile, I run across a toy I'd like for myself and alibi to my wife, Jeanne, when I get home that I bought it for the boys.
The first time I did that, she read the label and said, "This toy is for 8 and up, and Vincent's only 2."
"Well, he'll be 8 someday," I replied, as I took the remote-controlled boat and went to a lake.
While I learn to be patient with the boys, they learn one thing from me, too: where all the public restrooms are. The first thing I check whenever I go into a mall, or a store, or a park is where the can is.
Never know when I might have to make a mad dash. For the boys, of course (wink).

Rivalry starts before sibling arrives

Sibling rivalry can start before the sibling's arrivalry.
That's the way it was with Vincent, after his mom, Melissa, became pregnant when he was approaching 2, and we started hinting it would be nice to have a brother or sister. (Melissa and her husband, Skip, wanted the gender to surprise even them.)
Although Vincent seemed to agree it would be nice, you could tell he didn't quite understand and that a part of him wondered about the implications for him when his family went from the Three Musketeers to the Fab Four.
Sometimes, as Mom's vertical horizon expanded, Vincent would get a little somber when the topic came up, sometimes retreating to his inner child.
His parents did everything right, including him in preparations, reinforcing his own importance.
But every once in awhile, a little animosity surfaced, such as during a name discussion. I think Vincent's suggestion of Frankenstein Dumbo for a girl reflected his conflicted feelings: He envisioned a monster invading his domain, although he obviously is fond of the Disney elephant.
As it turned out, another boy arrived and they named him Jack Thomas, with the Thomas acknowledging Vincent's love of Thomas the Train. Although Vincent showed signs of skepticism about where Jack put him on the food chain, we (Mom, Dad, GiGi, his name for grandma, my wife, Jeanne and I) took pains to assure him that he is a vital limb on the family tree.
However, just because Vincent was willing to give his train's name to his brother didn't mean he was willing to give up his train. One day, he was playing with the wooden Thomas-like train set (a cheaper version) we have at our house when baby Jack crawled to the train table and pulled himself up.
Vincent firmly, albeit gently, brushed Jack's hand aside when he reached for a train car
Mom admonished: "Vincent, Papa Mike and GiGi got that train set for both of you! Now you give him something to play with!"
Vincent's eyes darted around the room and I sensed his mind, working double time. Finally, his eyes brightened as he grabbed a cork-topped glass coaster and handed it to Jack.
Jack's face glowed, as at 10 months, he didn't know a coaster from a coach car and he thought he had the best toy in the world.
I had to admire Vincent's creative sleight of hand.
Sharing comes more easily when the shoe is on the other foot. On Jack's first birthday, Vincent awoke at 7 a.m. and suggested blithely: "Let's open Jack's presents so he can share."
The rivalry, from my perspective, is small turf stuff, because Vincent has made HUGE concessions for the tyke. Such as the time an obviously hungry Jack was crying. This could have presented an insurmountable dilemma for Vincent, who had milked his breast-feeding time for all it was worth and was weaned reluctantly.
But without missing a beat, he said, "Mommy, he's hungry. You go over there and give him your nipple."
Greater love hath no brother, than he give up his space at the trough.
Or maybe he was currying favor with his sibling. The way nearly 2-year-old Jack can pack away food, there's the possibility that the little brother might become the big brother some day, and he might be able to beat the snot out of Vincent, who recently turned 4.
But the rivalry rears its ugly head less often these days, as Jack is has vaulted to the status of a playmate and a pal, while Vincent assumes the role of the sibling cavalry when Jackie gets jammed up.

Grandson teaches me in school of fish

Those of us who were nurtured, somewhat, to the tune of Teach Your Children Well are reaching the stage where we might think of tweaking it to Teach Your Grandchildren Well.
Sorry to make new and expectant grandparents gnash their teeth, but they are kidding themselves if they think they are the teachers.
I'm here to tell you: The kids are in charge. But it's not a bad thing, so, as the Crosby, Stills and Nash song goes: "Just look at them and sigh, and know they love you."
Maybe it was that way when my own kids were little and I was too busy, just trying to survive, to notice. Or maybe I'm just more teachable now, at the luxurious point of frequently hosting three grandsons for varying lengths of time for their life lessons.
(Some, such as my wife, Jeanne, might suggest that I'm often the least mature of the bunch.)
Oh, I didn't learn right away that the grandsons would teach me as much as I teach them. Indeed, I started out with a pretty inflated ego until No. 1 grandson, Anthony, brought me down to Earth. (Incidentally, the No. 1 refers to birth order; they're all grand.)
He is 13 now, but he was about 8 when he came to visit one weekend and said he'd like to go fishing, which we had not done on previous visits. Imagine how brilliant I looked, then, when I unveiled the brand-new rod and reel I had planned to give him that very day.
And off we went to the lake, where we had a successful day of fishing, because it included actually catching. And I caught more than he did, ta-da. He was awestruck as I shared my minimal knowledge about bait, habitat and habits of fish.
"Papa Mike, how do you know all this stuff?" he said, in awe.
With my head bigger than a puffer fish, I feigned modesty and bluffed on: "Just picked it up over the years."
I expected to continue my reign as bass master during his next visit but, unbeknownst to me, this straight-A student had devoured every book he could find on fishing, conned his parents into buying him several different rods and gone on fishing trips with his maternal granddad.
His accumulation of fishing gear made him look like pro angler Roland Martin, compared with me, Cooter Canepole.
Off to the lake again, where the fishing didn't include catching this time. So Anthony started bugging me to tie on an odd-looking lure. I pooh-poohed the idea because I had never caught anything on that lure and had concluded that it was just a lure company's way to hook an angler.
He wouldn't give up, so I finally tied it to his line, figuring that the only way he would learn it couldn't catch a thing was to experience it. Within seconds, he hooked a 2-pound bass.
A few minutes later, he said he was going to try a spot up the way.
"There won't be any fish there," I said.
"I read in a book there might be one in a place like that," he replied.
"It's easy to write a book; harder to catch fish," I said.
He kept bugging me, till I said, "Go ahead and try it, but don't blame me if you don't catch anything."
A few minutes later, he was reeling in a tail-walking bass.
So there I stood, feeling like a pile of stinkbait, as he wasn't saying, adoringly, "Papa Mike, how do you know all this stuff?" any more.
From then on, Anthony answered my questions while we fished.
It might be a good time for Graham Nash to add a line: "Children, teach your grandparents well . . ."

It's time for granddads to get their 2 bits in

Howcum grandmothers get most of the attention and all of the perks?
Songs wax eloquently, extolling the virtues of grandmothers. Evidence Lydia Maria Child's 1884 Christmas tune, Over the River and Through the Woods, a standard in grade-school music class:
"Over the river and through the woods,
"To Grandmother's house we go."
Well, boy howdy, what about grandfather's house, through the white and drifted snow? It's his, too. And, even though one version of the song substitutes grandfathers, keyed toward Thanksgiving, granny reigns.
Why? The answer lies in the last stanza:
"Over the river and through the woods,
"Now Grandma's cap I spy.
"Hurrah for fun, the pudding's done;
"Hurrah for the pumpkin pie."
Just because she can cook and, apparently, she's the fun one.
This grandpa is going on record: Some of us guys can cook, and we're fun, too.
Oh, I know grandmas also endure musical barbs, as in Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer, after too much egg nog. That holiday tune appears to take a sensitive turn, saying,
"It's not Christmas without Grandma.
"All the family's dressed in black. "
But then it zings again:
"And we just can't help but wonder:
"Should we open up her gifts or send them back?"
In light of Grandma's cooking prowess in Over the River, Grandma Got Run Over leaves me wondering, when it talks about the goose on the table and the pudding made of fig, after grandma's demise: Whoinheck cooked that food?
Oh, I know, there is a great, grandpa song, too, in The Judds' Grandpa, Tell Me ’Bout the Good Old Days, but it doesn't have the allure of Over the River.
Speaking of a lure, howcum stores blare offers for "Grandma Discounts," but you rarely, if ever, see ads for "Grandpa Discounts"? That's patently discriminatory, reducing grandpa to the Rodney Dangerfield of the grandparent equation.
Another problem is that these examples, among others, project the image of grandmas and grandpas in the ’50s, which are a far cry the young-looking Baby-Boomer grandparents of today, those of us in our 50s and some, even in the 40s.
Indeed, my wife, Jeanne, is damn near 60 — I like to tease her about that — while I am younger. She actually is only 58, but she is a young-looking grandma. She became a grandma at 45 and still doesn't fit those old-fashioned media images of apron-wearing grandmas with ample laps and bunned gray hair.
And I'm no doddering, cane-toting old grandpa, as the image conjured up in The Judds' song. (I don't even own a pair of Sansabelts, thankyouverymuch.)
Grandfathers do have a claim to fame in the "grandfather clause," an amiable phrase that lets the old remain after new laws or rules otherwise would push the old geezers aside.
And this is The Grandfather Clause, in which this grandfather intones this clause: We're important, too, and we're growing by legions. There's a boom coming.
Grandmas are only one limb on the family tree; we are grandpas, hear us bark. (Oh, I will pamper the wimmin and grant them one inalienable right: to diapers.)
I'm finding that my grandkids teach me as much, perhaps more, than I teach them. We will note such instances, as well as other anecdotes and probably, a few grandparenting tips.
Since this is a blog (actually, a tweaking of Grandfather Clause columns I have published in The Palm Beach Post in West Palm Beach, FL, also will be, let's see, what do the kids these days say, uh, interactive? Yeah, that's it, interactive.
Which means grandfathers new and old can send in anecdotes, grandparenting tips and kid quotes. (To show that we can rise above society's pigeonholes, we also accept — indeed, we welcome — grandmothers' participation, too.) Just don't be obnoxious, like some grandparents are, going on and on about mundane stuff. Keep ’em short and bright because we don't have room for long-winded bragging. That's for me. It's my blog and I'll brag if I want to.
Quotable grandkids . . .
My Grandson Vincent, lounging at a DisneyWorld pool during his first visit to the Magic Kingdom a few months after his third birthday, turns to his mom, Melissa, and says: "Mommy, we don't have a bra for me to protect my nipples like you have. We'll have to get me one."