"They are fighting over the same toy car. Why are they fighting over the same car? Why? And why are you not texting me back?"
I texted her back...
And somehow, while I meant to text "now you know how I felt bringing you and your sister up . . ." my phone sent, "Tell T if he puts some pants on they can come for a visit."
Darned auto-correct.
A visit from the grandboys usually starts with "can we go outside?" to which I answer, "yes but stay out of the mud".
It ends with a large pile of unrecognisable mud-caked boy-clothes on the deck, muddy footprints leading through the house to the bathroom and two boys soaking in a brown-tinged bubble bath.
Add that to the weather forecast - gale force winds and rain - and it looked like staying inside would be a good idea.
So I decided we'd go to the beach.
In Great-Grandma's campervan.
Hubby rang Great-Grandma and she said yes so we installed two excited passengers and voomed off.
According to the GPS we were vooming in the wrong direction.
It told us so as soon as we left, and despite my pressing of many buttons, it continued to tell us so for the entire 45 minute journey.
Coupled with incessant questions from the back seat about sharks and whether they would or would not come out of the sea and eat us, and complaints from T about having to wear pants, I was starting to frazzle a little myself.
We voomed on and arrived at a beach where waves were crashing.
I released the boys to the elements. They promptly wanted to get back in the van.
T didn't like the noise and J was unconvinced about the sharks.
"Look, sand!" I enthused. I ran up and down flapping my arms in the wind "look, I'm a seagull" I told them.
They looked a little like they wanted to disown me, a look I know well.
"You look like your mother," I told J. "Hey, I found shells!"
They were unimpressed until we went back to the van for food. Hubby had made hot dogs.
The nana-van is pristine, and upholstered. Boys are never pristine and in T's case - rarely upholstered. Especially in the trouser region.
I covered every surface in paper towels, then I spent 40 minutes diving about like a volleyball player catching flying dobs of sauce, lumps of sausage and clods of bread roll before they could land.
The beach seemed like a safer option and with the addition of a rugby ball and assurances that sharks only eat grownups we tried again.
The clincher proved to be the "chase the waves" game. Down towards the sea we chased them, running away when they came towards us. Down and back and down and back and - splat.
J tripped over in front of me as we fled a particularly large wave. I tried to hurdle him but in gumboots and a long coat, it was a fail. I faceplanted in the wet sand and T tripped on my outstretched legs and went down too. And the wave washed over us.
It was cold. We staggered up the beach, sodden. My gumboots were full of water. Hubby said he had been rushing to rescue us, honestly. It looked more like hysterical laughter than rushing.
Being wet delighted the boys. They ran, they rolled, we got back to the van and I had to de-clothe them before letting them inside. They travelled home wrapped in towels. T was delighted - no pants. I decided my pants were best left on.
The weekend ended with a large pile of sandy, wet boy-clothes on the deck at home, two gritty small boys in the bath and me frantically cleaning fingerprints from the inside of the nana-van.
So what could you do with the kids these holidays? I'd recommend huge quantities of coma-inducing junk food, video games, TV and movies. Lots of movies.