NIU

HEARING AIDS, TANNING LOTION, AND FREE MUSIC DOWNLOADS...GRANDPARENTS

Posted by Stacy on Tuesday, April 28, 2009 12:00 PM

My parents passed away when I was 14 and so it was at that time that my brother and I were sent to live with our grandparents. At first we were very concerned about leaving our home and our friends, but that was really the least of the problems, we soon discovered. We had visited with our grandparents very seldom when we were younger, so when we did see them it was mostly cookies and candy and playing games. I don't think that either Tom or I really had any clue what living with them would truly be like. When we first arrived, they had set up rooms for us, which really were quite nice, but most of our stuff went into storage and we really only got to bring a few items with us. The one household item that we did convince Grandpa that we needed was our computer. We told him we really needed to have it in order to do our school work, which really wasn't what we were thinking at the time, but that is how we convinced him.

The first few months started out okay, but it seemed that tension was getting thicker the older we were getting, and I mean all of us. First grandpa got his hearing aid because he couldn't hear right, but that was not a good thing because with the hearing aid he could hear some things really well, but still spent all his time saying WHAT? So I am not sure if the problem was really his hearing or just HIM! Then it was we couldn't access free music downloads on the computer because they said that was illegal...Everybody does it, but still they were constantly policing us. Then in the summer they started complaining about the smell of the tanning lotion that I was using and how it was making my grandmother sick.

Don't get me wrong, I love my grandparents, and do appreciate the fact that they took us in when mom and dad died, but I must admit that when it came time to go away to school, I really was not sad to be on my own. I must admit that I still go visit on school breaks and stuff, because they are still family, but boy I am glad that we don't all live under the same roof anymore, that was just too much!