“Ground Control, This is Grandma.”

I wanted my grandkids from LA to see the baby chicks at IFA in Spanish Fork.

I don’t care if they did raise a chick in kindergarten last year, where, I’d like to point out, it probably died a horrible big city death squeezed senseless by a bunch of over-privileged, coddled little off-spring of the typical 50-year old LA parent. (I’m not saying this is my kids, but it sure seems like a bunch of the “grandparents” I see picking up their little accessories are too old to be around five-year–olds too long.)

I wanted it bad enough to pitch a grandma-flavored fit. I promised we could go to the park afterwards, if they would only go to the d@*n farm store and look at the babies.

I don’t know what came over me. I sat on the couch in the kitchen knowing I wasn’t going to move until they agreed to IFA. It was pretty much IFA or die.

As a result of this fixation, things had started to fall apart badly last week during their visit. They came Tuesday night and by Wednesday I had pretty much alienated everyone in the family.

It was about control. I just needed to feel like I was in control of the situation.

I think this has got to be a common scenario in grandma and grandpa land. You’re hanging around the house everyday, eating your high fiber cereal and watching our generation’s versions of “Murder She Wrote.” One of the 400 different CSI’s or “The Mentalist. “

Your whole life gets to be about grown-up stuff. The radio’s off because you can’t hear each other otherwise. You go to bed at 11:30 because no one has to get up for school. You live in your own little slacker world where you coddle each other and go through each day making sure you don’t have to do anything too hard.

Then, BOOM. Up show the five-year-olds.

I like a five-year-old as well as the next person. I particularly enjoy being able to smile sympathetically at young mommies in the grocery who are about to literally have the tops of their heads blow off if their kids don’t stop crying about being stuck in the cart.

I’m sympathetic because it makes me look good, and because, I DON’T HAVE TO BE THAT PERSON ANYMORE. Oh my gosh, every time I think about never having to be pregnant again or so desperately tired I want to die, my heart just sings.

When the grandkids come, I’ve mistakenly come to assume I’m a generous, kind, child-loving person when in reality, I have morphed into the crone who lives down the street, the one whose house kids dare each other to go up to and ring and run.

I forget that all kids really want to do is eat cookies, watch cartoons, go to the park, and play with the dog. They don’t want field trips, agendas, schedules, or grown-up expectations.

My daughter-in-law said to me, “The kids are driving you crazy.” I said, “Oh, no, everything is fine.” But I was gritting my teeth in annoyance.

We had a little talk and I realized what the problem was: We have met the enemy and he is us. I needed to let go of my death grip on our life and do what someone else wanted to do for a change. Dang.

I can’t believe I’ve gotten into the habit of being so passive, of just letting stuff happen, and expecting it to happen exactly the way I want it to. I needed to plan for this situation, and that plan needed to include what the kids wanted to do. In other words, in insure my own survival, I had to let them dictate the program.

I have gotten out of the habit of letting kids be the boss, and being bossed around by kids takes some effort when you’re old. I remember a fight between my then five-year-old son and my dad about eating a tuna sandwich and wondering why it was so important to my dad that Billy ate the sandwich. Now I know. Control.

We never went to IFA. I think they probably would have enjoyed it, but we made scones, we got out all the games, we made a big mess, and we had a great time.

And now they’re gone, and they will never be here again as this year’s model.

I guess the baby chicks I needed to see were my own.