The Classic Grandparent

First of all, before I start, let me just say that we love Nenek. She's a great mother-in-law to me and a wonderful grandmother to the boys. There's nothing she wouldn't do for them.

Or, rather, there's nothing she wouldn't let the boys do.

Allow me to illustrate. When Abang was younger, before Adik came along, she used to try and feed him whenever we went over to their house. It's the typical Grandmother Method of Feeding, which is chasing after them all over the house with a bowl and spoon in the midst of their running around and playing.

When we suggest to her to put him in his highchair for his meal, she says, "But he likes it like this..." ("Dia dah suka macam ni..." to be exact.)

Never mind, we figured since she doesn't get to see him very often, getting spoiled by his grandmother on the odd occasion isn't so bad.

Adik knows exactly how to wrap Nenek around his little finger. Whenever we go over, his feet hardly touch the floor! Ok, that's a slight exaggeration but she does carry him around a lot. Less so now, as he gets bigger.

Once, when we went to their house, they had some relatives visiting and Adik wasn't too sure what to do about these strangers cooing over him. So he struggled to get out my clutches, ran to the kitchen whining, "Nenekkkkk.....", stopped right at her feet, put his arms up in the Carry Me pose and gave her this lost puppy dog look.

Of course she obliged!

He wants to play with the fly swatter, no problem. He wants to use her bathroom slippers all over the house, boleh. He wants to play outside without wearing his shoes, well, what's the problem?

Most recently, he was eyeing some cookies in the glass cookie jar on the dining table and proceeded to climb up onto the table. Before you know it, he was actually standing on the table! I only caught the situation when he was already standing on the table and she was right there with him, putting her arm around him so he doesn't fall (I guess).

First, I scolded him. Then it occurred to me he's just doing what he can get away with. So I pleaded with her, "Ala, please la, Nenek, don't let him stand on the table..."

"But he wanted to..." ("Dia dah nak...") was her response!

But she also realised that it's not a good thing for her grandson to be standing on the dining table so she tried to get him down. "Come, come, let's get down."

He refused. "He doesn't want to come down (Dia taknak turun)," she told me in a rather Eh-How-Ah? way.

Nenek also lets Adik and Abang feed the stray cats behind her house with Rabbit's expensive IAMS cat food. Which, honestly, I thought was ok but apparently Ant J had issues with that. There are other stories too, but, I'll only blog them if Ant J promises not have a go at Nenek about them :)