basketball
When my grandchildren were younger, their moms had to be to work at 8:00am, and I didn’t have to be to work until 9:00am, so I took the kids to school and daycare. They would begin arriving at my house around 7:30am, and when Josh, my youngest grandson, would walk in the front door, the first words out of his mouth were always the same…”Treat, Grandma…treat!!” Josh was a treat-a-holic, he had a one track mind, and he was always hungry. Left alone with a bag of candy, he would devour it all in one sitting. It wasn’t a matter of greed, he just liked treats so much that he couldn’t stop himself very easily.
When Josh would start asking for a treat with his cute little face, it was a hard thing to resist and I think he knew that, because he took full advantage of the hold he had on his grandma’s heart. He probably conned me out of more treats than the other three grandchildren combined. The only good news was that I tried to have some nutritious sweet snacks in the house, so he wasn’t always eating junk. I just don’t know how one kid could eat so many treats.
Josh can be a bottomless pit, but not usually for the normal foods unless he is in a growth spurt, but he is always a bottomless pit when it comes to sweets, like many other people I know, but that is where the similarities end, and I’m sure it is because he is a kid. You would expect that a child who likes candy and treats as much as Josh, would be an overweight child, but as soon as his baby days were over, so was any sign of chubbiness. Josh turned into a slender, athletic young man, who is a good basketball player and runner. He is also doing well in school, and I am very proud of him, but oh, I do remember the days when that little boy could smile his way into my heart and come out with the prize he was looking for…a treat.
Being the baby of the family is a position that is is very unique. The baby of the family is often treated differently. Maybe it’s because parents don’t like to think of their last child growing up. We talk baby talk longer, help them more with things, make their siblings help with more things, and in general baby them more. Maybe it’s isn’t always a good thing, but it is the way it goes most of the time.
And when you are also the youngest grandchild, maybe you get the baby of the family treatment even more. Josh was both of these things, and to top it off, he had a rough start too, which I will tell about on his birthday in September. Josh has had a love/hate relationship with baby of the family syndrome for a long time. Sometimes, like when he didn’t have to do the hard chores, because he was too little, he liked it, but when his older brother was babysitting…well it wasn’t so much fun. No kid likes to be bossed around.
But, Josh isn’t a baby anymore. He has grown tall and is very capable of regular chores, which he probably doesn’t like too much, and taking care of himself, which I’m sure he does like. He has a mind of his own about sports too. While his brother loves football, Josh would rather play basketball and be in track, both of which his tall, slender stature are better suited for anyway, so it’s all good.
And as usual, things come to the baby of the family after everyone else gets to do them. That would also lead to a few less stories about that youngest child, simply because they haven’t lived as long and the others, and therefore haven’t had as many experiences. Not an easy thing to swallow for a kid.
That said, however, there is something that Josh has a heart to help others. Whenever he can, he tries to assist my mom, his great grandmother in getting to her car after church. No one asks him to do it, he just does it. He has a kind heart. He also has a good sense of humor. He likes to joke around and especially to pick on me, his shorter than him grandma…because he can!!
