In this podcast episode, we discuss all the things you need to do to prepare yourself for a grandkids visit. No matter the age of the children, there are plenty of things that they can get into, and most of it is unsafe. We’ve got hints and tips on how to get you and your house ready.
Another way to listen is to subscribe to one of these services:
Apple Podcasts
Spotify
Google Podcasts
Deezer
Disclaimer: Some of our articles may contain affiliate links; when you click on these you can purchase a product or service at no extra cost to you, but doing so provides us some income to run the blog, and we thank you.
Full Transcript of Podcast
Corinne 0:04
Well, hi there. Welcome to our weekly podcast bought and grandparenting. This podcast is where Jim and I who are both lifelong educators, although relatively muted grandparent team, discuss issues that all grandparents must deal with in this ever changing world that we live in. We want to help you maintain the best relationships with both your children and your grandchildren, as well as give you all kinds of ideas, what to do with them all year long. Hopefully, we’ll be making memories together that will last a lifetime.
Jim 0:33
In this episode, we talked about getting ready for those grandkids to come over to your house. Now, we’re not just talking about baby proofing your house, although that’s the last part of it. And really, I think baby proofing is maybe a misnomer. Babies don’t really get into things, they just kind of lay around, right? Well, it’s more like child proofing. Because once they start moving, and they become more like toddlers, you really have to be ready for it. Well, I
Corinne 1:00
think tablets are a big one. And even elementary kids get into things all the time. And then teenagers are a whole different set. That’s a whole different ballgame, isn’t it? We’re not quite there yet, but I’m sure some of you are.
Jim 1:13
So we’re talking about what preparing ourselves mentally. So first, yeah, I
Corinne 1:18
think you have to prepare yourself, preparing the house physically. Exactly. So for example, when I think about when I first thought about being a grandparent, the last thing in my mind was, you know, what I needed to do, I was thinking about the baby and how cute he or she was gonna be. And, you know, I wanted to hold kiss and all that kind of stuff that I didn’t really want things to buy things I want to do with them. But I didn’t really think about like, sort of the nuts of bolts at first. And it’s amazing how fast they’re growing, and how soon you do have to worry about their safety and what you’re gonna do to prepare. So my grandmother, I used to go to her house occasionally, probably once a year in the summertime, I never I never went there in the winter. Anyway, we were there about once a year in the summertime. And she didn’t have a lot of rules. But she was also kind of strict at the same time. I mean, she had those balance of I don’t know, it’s just interesting to me that she didn’t we weren’t really allowed in the living room by ourselves,
Jim 2:30
because she had lots of shots, gifts, or whatever you call that. Yeah,
Corinne 2:33
that’s a good word. She had a lot of little trinkets and just, you know, important things that were hers that she didn’t want to get messed up. And why should she take those down? When we were there? We because we weren’t there very sure, yeah. Maybe if we lived there, she would bind a different place for them that was safer or something. But we just were allowed in the living room when everybody was in the living room. So that, of course, we weren’t jumping on furniture and things like that. Luckily, she lived on a farm. So we were outside most of the time anyway. Um, when I think about myself, I think about things like I have medication, and medication, you know, before we had grandbabies, I just sort of left on the counter in the kitchen, because that’s where it’s easy to take it right. That’s not a good idea. When you have little kids around, they need to be put up high or locked or whatever. So if you have to change your mindset, because you’re so used to doing something a certain way.
Jim 3:29
And really, you should also think about when you’re taking it. So it’s not just about keeping it away from the child. But you know, do you you don’t really want to be taking it in front of the child all the time. Or if you do, explaining why you’re taking pills, because it can look like something that’s Oh, I want one of those little canisters that shake around really nicely, and I can eat things out of it. Yeah. Does that make sense?
Corinne 3:54
It does make sense. I mean, I think we always have to be sort of cognizant about what they’re taking in and what they see as fun or interesting or, I mean, cuz you know, he, he wants one of everything if we have a cookie, cookie, so if I have a pill, he wants a pill. I’m like, no, no, no, that word so
Jim 4:13
of course, it’s a learning thing. But at the same time, to me, it just makes sense to alter your, your hours a little bit if you can, or just take it in the bathroom.
Corinne 4:23
But I do think you need to sort of have some time to sit down and think about when your grandkids are coming over. What are some things that they can do? What are some things they can do? What are some things that you’re not willing to change? Because that’s your choice, right? It’s your house. Like my grandmother, it was like everybody said, living room simple, but I mean, so you could have rules, but if you have too many rules, unfortunately, then maybe the grandkids aren’t gonna want to come over as often.
Jim 4:54
Yeah, and you end up fighting battles. Yeah, if you can limit your rules to just the one that you absolutely need to be fighting battles with your grandkids well, and
Corinne 5:05
then of course, that’s going to put a strain on your relationship with your children’s right? Because they don’t want to see you as the ogre, or they don’t want to have to fight with the kids to come take you to grandma’s house. I totally get it. Yeah, cuz they won’t come because they just won’t come because it’ll be too hard. That’s right. And I think the rules should be something that are, are pretty, like, easy to understand. For example, if you have a pool, I mean, the rule is, the door’s locked, it stays locked while you’re here until there’s someone to go out to the pool with the kids. Otherwise, it’s just too dangerous. The same thing goes with the busy street, right? Or, you know, maybe riding bikes by themselves, or maybe going out to the shops, or whatever it is, I mean, having on their age, that’s gonna change, of course, yeah, exactly, depending on their age, depending on how safe your neighborhood is, depends on a lot of things. Okay, so
Jim 6:03
another thing that is really important is keeping the child the grandchild, comfortable at your house and not getting homesick or exactly as in the parents. So one thing that we like to do for that, and that we suggest is to remind the parents to bring, you know, maybe one of their special stuffed animals or a special Binky or a blanket that they can bring to us. You don’t want to keep it at the grandparents house. Because then you’re going to have your own things that are associated with the grandparents with grandma, grandpa, this is something that they can bring back and forth, that they associate with mom and dad,
Corinne 6:43
if they need it for comfort. Yeah. Yeah, well, it could be their their particular Biggie or their particular toy that they sleep with whatever it is that makes them feel like they’re at home and comfortable. It’s I think it’s especially about being comfortable and not right, missing something. I
Jim 7:00
think that as time goes by, that becomes less necessary because they will start to feel special things at grandma grandpa’s house.
Corinne 7:10
It also depends how much time they spent here, right? So AJ didn’t need to bring a lot of stuff with him because he has his own blanket. He has his own bed here. It’s here every day. Most days, he’s here most days. And he is just as comfortable here as he is at home. But that’s because we see him just about every day,
Jim 7:27
a few times a year for like a week. And the parents have that’s that’s not such a big deal. But if they’re going to come on, on a visit on their own, that’s what we’re talking about.
Corinne 7:37
Yeah, like an overnight or something or weekend. The other thing I think that’s really important, and we don’t think about it as adults that much, but boy, you put a kid in that mix, and you’re gonna think about it real quick as messes right? Let me tell you kids are messy. It’s the way it is. It’s the way it’s always going to be. If you have a kid a grandchild, that’s not messy. Well, I don’t know how you did it. I need to share that make some money? Because I yeah, get
Jim 8:06
that kid out making messes? Because that’s where creativity comes from?
Corinne 8:10
Well, a lot of it. Yes, there is that. But anyway, you want to make sure you know where you feel comfortable with them being kids. Is it only in the backyard? Or is there a dem plays in a play room? Or is there a place where you can let them be themselves without having to worry about healing all the time. Don’t touch that. Be careful. Stop jumping. Kids jump kids run. That’s what kids do. And they’re gonna completely and they’re gonna get into things I used to love. Oh my gosh, what am I favorite things about going to Grandma’s house was to go up in the attic and search through all the trunks. And she’s okay with that. Oh, she was she was up there with me. And yeah, oh, it was just a habit. You know, that dusty smell. And you’re really when it came down. But boy, was it fun when you were up there. There were things to try on pictures. I did not realize how early that starts. One of ages favorite things to do is to go in the closet or a drawer that we have and look what I found some old checks what can I do with me.
Jim 9:20
So we have to be with him when he’s in that area. That’s not an area where he can just go and play. He can do that in the playroom we have his toys are there and he can just play there. And we don’t necessarily leave him alone there. But we also don’t need to be watching everything that he’s getting into because there’s nothing he can get into that it’s a problem because they take care of it and a kid a child needs that they need that area. So try to set something like that up at home where they can make a mess and you can easily clean it up later and it’s not going to be a problem for you.
Corinne 9:56
So so things you want to think about when the grandchildren are coming over. for the weekend or for an overnight for something special or whatever, is to make sure that if you’re with them alone, that you’d have the emergency numbers, the copy of the insurance card or something so that in case there is a real emergency that you could take care of it. And, and yes, of course, you’re gonna call the parents and get them ready as soon as possible. But if you know you can get things started,
Jim 10:21
have a plan beforehand of that where you will take them to a doctor’s office or an emergency room, hopefully not, but be prepared for it.
Corinne 10:30
I mean, that is good to know,
Jim 10:33
that’s in their insurance network. So it’s not something you are worrying about after the fact. And you’re ready for it. I like to I always tell people, whenever I say take a copy of this or copy that, you know, the easiest thing to do is just take a picture of it with your phone, right into a phone note. And then you can stick that up to the top insurance cards. I do my insurance cards a picture of my passport, maybe we need to do like sample of that on i That’s a good idea. or digital videos.
Corinne 11:07
Okay, so you want your emergency numbers you want, of course, everybody’s phone numbers, and you want to make sure that you know who the doctor is what allergies there are, if there’s medication involved, all that kind of stuff, which I know that sounds like common sense, but common sensical. But the first time you don’t do it is the time it’s gonna happen. I mean, it’s just you know, Murphy’s Law.
Jim 11:29
You just want to have it beforehand. And like I said, knowing that phone number to call where that doctor’s offices where that emergency room is, and that is covered in their insurance network is going to be huge for you.
Corinne 11:43
Well, just a little relief, at least part of the stress. Yeah. So another thing and this isn’t safety, really, but this is just me because it’s so important. Yeah, being ready for the kids is make sure that you have memory in your phone, camera, wherever you
Jim 12:00
want to constantly be deleting old photos for new photos.
Corinne 12:05
I just happened to me a couple of weeks ago. Okay, so we were traveling in South Dakota. And we wanted to take some video Crazy Horse at Crazy Horse of a Native American doing a hoop dance, which was Lakota tribe. Yeah, Lakota Sioux. And she was amazing. And then I found out that I had very little storage left, and it would allow me to take videos, I was not happy. Luckily, we have two phones. And luckily, we had some we had a video camera. So they did
Jim 12:36
galavanting on my own like I usually do when we’re when we’re touring someplace like that need to be out of luck.
Corinne 12:43
Okay, well anyway, so make sure that you have extra memory cards that your phones are cleaned up. What I tried to do is clean up my memory before every event. So the morning of the event or the day before. For example, we just went out to the pumpkin patch last weekend. So one of the reasons I’m out there, as you know, is I love pumpkins, everybody loves pumpkin. So we got to take those pictures. So I go in the morning and clear my photos and make sure I have plenty of room. Because that’s the whole reason I’m doing one of them.
Jim 13:15
Like your memory cards getting reformatted. Yeah, I just wasn’t ready for it. You know, that’s some that’s a question that I actually see a lot are and have had to field a few times, is managing photos digitally. We use Google Photos. And for the easiest to use, and but none of them are easy. Yeah, the iPhone photos app. works good too. It has its own quirks that you need to deal with when you’re talking about getting things off of your phone and not losing anything because that’s everybody’s big worry. If I clear them off my phone, I lost them forever. Well, if you do it right, you won’t.
Corinne 13:54
I’ve lost one of my forever. I think we all have because there’s it’s easy to do sometimes. So right? What is the most important thing there? The tip is to know your equipment. And do it frequently so that you don’t lose things. There’s
Jim 14:08
a lot of people out there that just have full phones, and they have to delete things to take new things. Yeah. I’ll add that to a note. And we will put that as a video and a web, a web post a blog post,
Corinne 14:23
I was at a friend and we were watching a parade in Germany and look over and she’s deleting my six pictures. And then she took you know, a few more pictures and then she went through them and she deleted really old old pictures, old pictures. What are those pictures doing on that camera? And she’s like, well, I just leave them there and then I delete them when I need to delete them. I don’t I don’t suggest that being the way you do things. She was
Jim 14:49
one person that I had to help set up a system so that she wouldn’t always have everything on her will have to check pixels with their iPads too. So it was
Corinne 14:59
funny. Anyway, we’ll do a whole blog post on that for you guys, it is a really difficult thing to get in the habit of doing. But it’s important because you want those memories to last a lifetime.
Jim 15:11
So also, I think you need to moving on a little bit. But still preparing yourself, be rested, when your grandkids are coming is not the time to, you know, have gone out, go out or resize the house, or major yard work or any big projects like that, unless it’s something that they’re coming to help you with. And you can do it as a as a family as a activity worksheet,
Corinne 15:38
which is a good idea to especially if you have teenagers,
Jim 15:42
I want to be wiped out and tired and need to take naps all the time on the couch because of it. Or you’re like out of it for the first day that they’re there. So be rested for it.
Corinne 15:53
And it’s also not a time to talk on the phone with your friends, or have video chats with the other grandchildren. Unless that’s part of the plan as well. I mean, that could be part of the plan, and that’s fine. But it’s a time for them to make them feel special. So you want to have your activities and your trips and your walks and your projects, whatever you’re planning on doing ready to go. You shouldn’t even have to necessarily go shopping unless again, that’s part of it. I made one of those knotted really quick and easy blankets for AJ just a few weeks ago because as we said, we wanted him to have his own blanket while he was here. And so we took him with us to the store to pick out the material that he liked the best, we would have picked out the right one anyway. But you know, they love doing things like that. Right? So I mean, if it’s part of the plan, that’s one thing, but otherwise, have everything else ready. Just be ready, have the stroller have always had snacks ready for us? I’ll never forget that rolling up to her house at two o’clock in the morning, after we’d driven for, you know, 500 miles that day or 300 miles and having little finger sandwiches? I’ll never never never forget it the same? Well, as for you, yes. And either way, I believe it was potted meat a lot of times and there were some egg salad. And they weren’t necessarily to the taste of young children. Like I don’t remember ever having peanut butter and jelly or anything like that. It’s what she had as an old lady sitting around the house, but she made the effort to make them and get up at two o’clock in the morning or whatever time they were ready and we ate them and no one complained. So it was wonderful. So of course, getting yourself prepared mentally is important. And just sort of thinking about things that you need to think about so that you can also get the house ready as well. Yeah.
Jim 17:51
Well, like our house is ready. We’ve spent some time preparing things. But it’s funny what comes up? Yeah, you don’t really know everything until a child gets in the house. So you really want to spend the time very closely, depending on their age again, with them and kind of learn what you missed. Before it’s a problem. So that’s definitely a step to think about as they’re when they’re first getting there.
Corinne 18:17
And Mike has we have AJ quite a bit. So he comes over to new things. So then we have to sort of change you
Jim 18:25
evolves. But so I have like my nightly routine that I have to go through every night on a day before he’s gonna come over. So I’m ready in the morning because he comes pretty early. So dark 30. And I’m not wide awake and ready to run around and chase him around. So the house has to be ready for that the areas where he’s going to be I’ve I walked through before I go to bed, make sure that the outlet covers are plugged back in, because they may have been pulled out for vacuuming or something like that. That remote control which he just loves to use. But if he starts pushing the wrong buttons, it makes it very difficult to reset it the way it needs to be to work for us. So that needs to get up put up somewhere where he’s not going to get it. He loves to help me first thing in the morning, put away the dishes. Some days I’ve got one or two loads of dishes do but I want to make sure that I start the dishwasher the night before I go to bed. And then I also want to make sure that there’s no sharp things in there because he’s going to be helping me put things away. So I don’t watch the knives in the dishwasher in the dishwasher. What else do I do before I go to bed? Of course make sure his toys are in the right place so that he knows where he’s gonna be able to find them first thing in the morning and then just make sure that
Corinne 19:54
well when it’s asleep. Yeah, one of the things is he’s starving by the time he gets here because he’s been up At least half an hour, usually by the time it gets here. And he and they don’t feed him because it’s a dark 30th. And he’s not going to eat on the way out the door. Right? And so he is hungry by the time it gets here. So the first thing we do is give him a, a heated glass of milk because he’s it’s starving, and he loves his milk, of course, just like a little kids do. And he, you know, that’ll calm them down right away, and he’s not starving, put something in their belly. So we get that ready for him as well as much as possible.
Jim 20:30
So and of course, you know, again, we these are probably common sense things. But even common sense things should be talked about.
Corinne 20:40
Well, but they’re common sense. In hindsight, in hindsight, maybe, you know,
Jim 20:45
they make sense. Yeah. Cuz they were an issue at some point in time. Exactly. It’s
Corinne 20:49
like, oh, oh, gosh, if we just put that remote up, it wouldn’t be blaring at six o’clock in the morning and waking up to people next door,
Jim 20:56
when we talked about the medicines, making sure the medicines exactly things like cleaning supplies are secured.
Corinne 21:03
Yeah, so you want to get the house ready. But But there’s more to it than just the daily routine that Jim was talking about. There’s things that can just stay that way, you know, the whole time that the kids are there. And if you want to take them down, when they’re gone, that’s fine, too. It really depends on how often you’re going to see your grandkids, and how much it needs to be done for the time that they’re going to be here. But it does need to be done. Because it’s amazing how fast they can get into those power strips or those outlets or unscrewing lightbulbs. I just can’t even imagine all the things they do. It’s just crazy. But yeah, you want to check where were you saying you want to check your door handles your cupboards, your smoke detectors,
Jim 21:46
you might need baby gates, things like that. So we’ll put it in our show notes. We’ll put a list of the objects or the things that we use that you’re easily purchasable. purchasable on Amazon or at your local hardware store.
Corinne 22:03
So yeah, we’ll have we’ll download a tech sheet for you. But basically, what we have us is we have one baby gate that we use. We don’t really need a baby gate for the front door. But we weren’t sure what to do about the front door. He kept trying to open the door,
Jim 22:20
the age where he wants to turn doorknobs. He’s not strong enough to get it open. By he’s trying but he’s trying now. We lived in Germany for a long time. And in Europe, they don’t have round doorknobs. They have levers. Yeah. Which are so easy. So that’s a different issue. But round doorknob, what do you do. And then we found out we found out we were actually in someone’s house and saw these plastic covers that go over the doorknob. They’ve got little holes on the side. So you can pinch the doorknob with your finger and your thumb and hold it inside the plastic cover to Turn the doorknob. But the child can’t, hasn’t figured that out and won’t it probably doesn’t have the dexterity, and maybe even the the width of the fingertips that he can get into there and actually open the doorknob. Anyway. We love that little plastic around the
Corinne 23:16
things that’s the coolest thing. He’ll just sit there and play with it. But that’s okay. It’s not giving out. Oh, that’s
Jim 23:21
something that we never really thought about. Until he got here. We’re babyproofing we’ve got these springy, doorstops down the face behind every door, which I think is pretty common. And he came in and he was crawling. He was little and he would find those things from day one, and just springs braings blowing and start giggling and laughing because he loved the sound. But it didn’t take him long. And we didn’t realize this at the time. Maybe within a week of being in the house every day, he was able to unscrew those things off the wall. So luckily, he was still at the point where it was new. We were following them all the time. And we saw it come off so those all came off the walls with them but if we
Corinne 24:15
haven’t defined one which surprises me, yeah, he just loves them anyway. And the other thing that everybody has now I don’t know about your house but my house I just feel like I’m always tripping over some quarter another right there power strips their lamp cords. They are, you know desk courses just everywhere. They drive me absolutely crazy to make these
Jim 24:38
really cool clips that you can pound that you have a small nail on them. You can pile them into the baseboard. They’re not they’re not going to make a big hole. So you don’t really have to worry about damaging your house, but they will secure the cables out of the way. So the child won’t trip or pull on them.
Corinne 24:57
Which we’ve had done. Yeah, he’s had to replace our coax ending with a
Jim 25:03
connector on the wall. Yeah, for a while, grab that and pull on it.
Corinne 25:07
Yeah, and him. You know, of course, once he realizes that it’s something he’s not allowed to have, he’s that much more interested in it. So those are things that you just need to know and sort of take care of, I guess. But there are nowadays it’s so easy to find power strip covers, all kinds of different outlet covers, depending on your need, whether it has part of cord, or whether it’s just the empty one. Yeah, or even USB charger cord. Covers, they have something for just about everything that you possibly need. And if they’re at your house, you’re gonna need you’re gonna need it. Another thing is there’s oven safety locks, cabinet latches, and drawer locks, corner protector. I
Jim 25:54
really like this little rubber corner protectors. Yeah, I like him, too. I
Corinne 25:59
didn’t have those when we’re kids, they didn’t. And I don’t, I mean, we have an amazing amount of partners,
Jim 26:05
until you start looking. And
Corinne 26:10
actors, and we have a tiny house anyway. And then if you have a pet, that’s a whole different thing, because you don’t want to have your, your pets, food or litter, or whatever, where the kid can get to it where the child can get to it. And they have these really cool things now called door buddies. And what it is, is it only allows the door and allows the door to open see if you have like a litter box on there. But you adjust the strap so the only animal can get in and allows it for the cat to get in or the small dog or whatever. If you have a large dog, I don’t I don’t think it would really work. You’d probably have to go with your baby gates for that. But at least pick one of those up for a small one. Yeah, we’re always I mean, you know, we we bought a good set of this stuff. And like Jim said, and then something else happens like, oh, we need that. Oh, and now we need Oh, why don’t we think of these guys. And that’s why we’ve made a checklist for you guys, it’s
Jim 27:04
fine motor skills are getting better. And now he can do this with what we did have for a safety protector. So
Corinne 27:11
yeah. And so everything. Like he said, it evolves, I think some things you really really have to think about, though, are again, things that are dangerous to their health as far as if they end ticket. And by that we mean again cleaning supplies, and, you know, dog supplies or animal supplies, or medicines, or, you know, even foods that they don’t want to have. You don’t want them to get into too much. Because it could be, you know, either a mess, or bad for them. Or I’d say yeah, or just unsafe. Yeah, exactly. Um,
Jim 27:56
first aid kit is always a good idea to have on hand and make sure it’s up to date. And when you use something out of it, which hopefully you won’t have to but when you do right away, replace it.
Corinne 28:09
One thing that I think is important, and Erica and Michael bought us one right away, was we have our own car seat for AJ because he’s with us so much of the time that we’re always taking them someplace and he needs to be saved. So they bought when they bought their first one. And they had done all the research on what was the safest newest things because you know those things. You can’t buy a used one because they go out of date. And you don’t know what it’s been through. Well, you don’t know what it’s been through. But they expire. They’re only good for so long. They actually have expiration dates on baby seats. So you want to be very, very careful about that. So they went ahead and bought us one when they bought theirs. And we have one that always stays in my car, which is great because we’re always taking them someplace. But if you’re only visiting for a weekend, you just need to make sure you get that baby seat so that you can hold her grandkid around and do some fun things with him or her. Right. The same thing. bike helmets or a safety vest for the bike or gloves, knee pads, elbow pads for skateboard or skateboarding. I know you might not want to go skateboarding but those skate parks skateboard parks are a lot of fun to watch if nothing else out, right? We love that. And we have a first day Curt kid in our trailer, we have one in our car, we have one in our house, because you’re not going to carry it back and forth between all the places so he just not this is good idea and period doesn’t matter how old you are right? Then you want them to feel safe taking maps, and comfortable. They
Jim 29:42
should have their own place for taking a nap if you can. And even if you can’t have their own room, then you know their own sleep materials. It’s a sleeping bag, a pack and play a pillow that’s just theirs.
Corinne 29:58
They have these really cool little toddler nap mats now. But anyway, it’s a sleeping bag that has like the blanket that comes over it, it’s a mat. So you lay on it and put a pillow in it. And then the blanket is the same material, but it’s attached to it. So it kind of flips over a sleeping pad. It’s like a sleeping habit looks like a sleeping bag, not to look at it. It’s really cool. We haven’t bought one of those yet, so we need to do that on the list. Then you have to worry about breakable dishes. I personally well you don’t like plastic Aspies plastic where I despise give your child. But I’m not going to give a two year old or three year old or even a seven year old. All my you know breakable plates and glasses, they need to have plastic stuff. So you might want to get some plastic dinnerware and utensils
Jim 30:50
for AJ. And for the young children who are learning to drink, you don’t want to give them just a glass of milk anyway. So we’ve got this. They’re not like tippy cups. It’s like a magic drink. They’re really cool. That doesn’t spill, but he sips out of it. And when he sips it, the liquid comes up with that on that link to
Corinne 31:15
know. And then you just want to have some ideas of wherever you’re gonna keep some of their toys, or have toys specifically that they can use. Or games, depending on their age, you don’t have to go out and spend a lot of money on toys, what you want to do is maybe go to garage sale or a thrift store, you can get some old games and toys from there. And the kids don’t care. There’s something real and they love playing with us new, right? So maybe some books, a lot of books, we always have books for AJ to read. And he likes new ones. We just got a new one today, it was so much fun. Anyway, we have lots of book articles, or we’ll and we’ll have keep adding to him. Again, it’s good digital. So check that out to see what books do get performed. For example,
Jim 32:05
yeah, so you’ve got your house ready, you know, don’t forget to go outside, don’t forget to check the garage. Oh, yeah, the basement into the sheds. Don’t just stop in the house, get outside too, and and check the yard and check all those areas, they’re extra locks if you need them.
Corinne 32:22
Especially if you have gardening supplies, or if you have a mower, all of those things can be really dangerous. So
Jim 32:29
just try to keep a safe place where you can keep the outside toys that aren’t so they’re not mingled with the dangerous things. So that when you’re outside, you can say oh, you want to go ride your bike, go ahead, get your bike, and let’s go or get your tricycle or whatever it is. And you don’t have to go get it for them, or worry about them doing something else dangerous along the way.
Corinne 32:52
And of course, I mean, this also kind of goes without saying, but I’m gonna say it anyway, you want to have your extra diapers and wipes and extra set a close healthy snacks, lots of fruit and water. You can put things in the bottom of the phrase so the shorter kids can reach it better, and you don’t have to get up and get it for them every time. Unless that’s your rule and you want to that’s fine too. I can understand that rule.
Jim 33:16
And then just some foods that you know that they’ll always eat, just in case what you cooked isn’t to their liking.
Corinne 33:24
Well, for example, we had chicken and dumplings the other night. And AJ was like, I don’t know what you people think you’re eating, eating that. So we went made of a peanut butter sandwich and he was just happy. But you have to have that on hand and be ready for it. Because otherwise, you know, they’re not always gonna eat what you like. Let’s just wait this. Oh,
Jim 33:46
I thought of one more thing. So this this is something that’s really important that a lot people don’t think about unless they live in an earthquake zone. And most people live in earthquake so know about this, but they make brackets that you can secure your furniture to the wall. And it’s really important when you have Thomas not for the earthquakes. But because they like to climb young children like to climb when I was I think three I did this exact thing. You know you got a dresser drawers. I think my dad’s dresser had five drawers in it. And he had left his watch on the top of his dresser and I could see it. And by this point I was climbing. So I pulled out the bottom drawer and I climbed in it I pulled out the next drawer and I climbed in and I pulled out and I got all the way to the top drawer and pulled it out. And as soon as I started to pull on it, the whole thing came down on top of me so
Corinne 34:44
that you need the
Jim 34:49
security furniture. Yeah, this brackets are an easy thing to add.
Corinne 34:54
Well we know that a lot of you have already figured this out and we know a lot of you have a lot more ideas and some acts and things you can tell us about. Yeah.
Jim 35:03
So if that’s the case, join us on our Facebook private group, modern grandparenting and leave us a message, join the conversation or ask a question.
Corinne 35:17
So anyway, thank you for joining us this week on modern grandparenting. For more things that are about grandparents and everything to do with our grandchildren, go to our website Banska digital, sign up for our newsletter and don’t miss out.
Jim 35:32
Hit subscribe button. Share with all your friends. Thanks for listening and
Corinne 35:38
parenting
Transcribed by https://otter.ai