Three of the biggest kids in our family stayed up way too late watching cartoons again tonight. Our two grandsons and I were having a grand old time with Marvin The Martian, Heckle and Jeckle, The Tazmanian Devil, and some newer, computer animated cartoons we’d never seen before.

A couple hours before they were playing Star Wars games of some sort. The two brothers took our only small, reasonably kid proof flashlight into the bathroom and closed the door. In Ollie’s imagination, the flashlight served a dual purpose: illumination device and light saber.

Nini and I were on the couch and listened carefully, then I raised my voice a bit and asked what they were doing in there. No reply. I asked again, a little more loudly. “We’re just playing…” the response was audible at first and tapered off, which kicked in our Parent Spidey Senses. My magnifying mind had them mixing nail polish with toothpaste or something. These boys are the ripe old ages of 7 and 3 so there’s no telling what they’re gonna do.

I raised my voice a little more and bellowed, “open the door.” They were simply enjoying the fun a flashlight brings on the mirror and other shiny surfaces. Gabe, the 3 year old, came up to me with wide eyes and a very serious tone and said, “I need to go to the force!!” Apparently, “the force” was in the dark bathroom with the door closed.

“You need the force? I’ll make a big force!!,” I said. Then I got up and turned all the lights off; making the entire back of the house a dark force dwelling. That satisfied both of them; but one problem remained. There was only ONE flashlight. A quick trip to the store would solve that. “Make sure they are the same,” Nini urged. “Oh yes,” I replied.

I mean hey, I’m not as dumb as I look.

After the force was with them for a half hour or so, it was getting close to bed time. At our house, that means cartoons. It’s become a tradition: Nini (Granny) hits the hay earlier than us boys. She stretched out on the other couch and nodded off a couple times. After announcing once or twice, “I’m falling asleep,” she got up and kissed us all goodnight.

We watched a few funny animal videos, then switched to cartoons. As their normal bed time became a thing in the distant past, Ollie uttered his normal stalling sentence. “Just one more cartoon Papa. Please?”

OK. One more. And one more after that, and of course one last “one more.”

By this time it was very close to 10 PM, and both were so tired their brain waves where getting pretty wonky. Nice thing about them being dog tired though, is that neither of them fought when I tucked them in; and just a few microseconds after I said “good night,” they were out.

Nini and I are both very aware that our “rock star” status won’t last forever. As they mature, their friends will get much more of their free time than we will; so we’ve learned to stop everything in our world for what matters most.

We’re loving every minute of it.

As I mentioned earlier, we watched some of the “traditional” cartoons… like the kind Nini and I watched while we were growing up.  Here’s a newer one we found that was pretty entertaining.