Geriatric Adventures (or My Good Boy)

There are many adventures to write about that have taken place over the past few days. We (Bill's mom, Grandpa, and our family) went to Disneyland for three days. We stayed in the Disneyland Hotel and everything! Many adventures and good memories that I could write about. Or I could write about my birthday, which is today incidentally. I went to tea with some lovely ladies and had a wonderful time.

Those are blogworthy things and they will be properly documented in time, but for today I will tell a short story of the adventure of Senior Center Lunch. An oxymoron? Perhaps. I may be stretching the definition of the word adventure, but I digress. Once or twice a week, Papa Wes (Bill's grandfather who lives with us) likes to go to lunch at the Senior Center. This is one of the adjustments that the boys have made gladly. They are quite popular among the old folks. Yesterday was BBQ Beef day and Grandpa thought that sounded appetizing, so a stroller, a walker, 2 boys, 1 Senior Citizen, and a mama all piled in the van for the short trek. Problem 1 - The Senior Center at lunchtime on voting day equals no handicap parking spots. Drive around, park at the Community Center, walk a little further...problem 1 solved. Problem 2 - Cashier in the dining room refers to Wes as "baby" when determining what price he should be charged. Wes begins frantically correcting her, with no response, leading him to believe he needs to correct her louder and more firmly. He is soon yelling, "I'm just a BIG BOY! I'm just a BIG BOY!" Uncomfortable laughter on my part and a quiet explanation about elderly people referring to children as "babies" is normal and acceptable. Problem 2 sort of solved. Problem 3 - Miss Violet joins us for lunch. Wes is scolded firmly for eating his roll before he ate his food of substance. He was repeatedly referred to as "little boy", repeatedly scolded for drinking too much milk before eating meat and spinach, for taking too big of bites, for speaking with his mouth full. Finally Miss Violet had to take matters into her own hands...literally. She cut up all of Wesley's food and began to feed him bites. I thought her point had been made. I was wrong. She proceeded to feed Wesley every last morsel of food on his plate! My darling, long-suffering boy who is 5 years old and more than capable of self-feeding took each bite in stride. After each bite he looked at me with uncertainty and then just continued to eat. "Do you want to eat by yourself?" I asked. "It's okay. She likes feeding me and I think she is pretending she's my grandma." He ate every bite and answered her every last question. "What a fine young gentleman you have here." She said to me. I couldn't agree more.