April 10, 2026
We just had the Baltimore contingent here for Spring break, complete with four of the grandchildren, ages 4 to 8. Millie, Ella, Arlow and Walker. There are another dozen or so scattered all over the place, so we kind of cycle through them through the year. Baltimore was up this week.
I have my working office on the ground floor level. It is my haven, it comes complete with heavy doors, guard tower and snarling dogs. Keeps out the unwanted, which is pretty much everyone. Fails with the grandkids however, who pet the dogs, wave to the guys in the guard tower, and co-operate on the heavy door. Polite enough to knock but not patient enough to wait.
So, the pounding at the door. I am in the middle of a hideously complicated option trade, simultaneously modeling and hyper ventilating at the risk. Timing could be better at the door. So, I’ve learned to hold my breath, steel myself for what is about to happen.
It reminds me of the Three Stooges where the boys pile up against a door and then someone opens it and they all come tumbling into the room. Do they teach that in elementary schools in Maryland, I wonder? Am I thereby the straight man for the grandchildren’s mayhem? Answer, yes.
On my side of the family, I am Papa. On Michael’s side of the family I am Sasha. This is because Lucy, the four-year old in California thought I looked like Santa Claus…white hair, appropriate girth. She couldn’t say the words, “Sasha” came out, so I’m now stuck with the diminutive name for Alexander, originally a Russian/Slavic nickname.
Back to the invasion. Who teaches kids to yell and shriek out your name, simultaneously? Like one of those scenes in the movie where they’re throwing bread off the truck to the hungry crowd, everyone yelling and pushing forward.
So, they all tumble into the office, Stooges style, yelling my name. My eyes are as big as plates, I’m hugging my keyboards lest one bumps into a Send button and simultaneously rat-a-tats the zero key, orders up 15,000,000 shares of something, thus assuring family bankruptcy for generations.
“The pool isn’t working!” cries the chorus.
Here in Florida, that’s the equivalent of Defcon 1. The secret to keeping the grandchildren happy and active and away from you is to…put them in the swimming pool.
They pinball between sleeping, directly to Fruit Loops, to the swimming pool and then to dinner. And then, two hours of Mom and Dad negotiating “it’s time for bed.” Plaintive cries and objections. Thus, the pool is not only a financial threat, but it becomes a threat to one’s sanity if it’s on the fritz.
No pool, then I got four of them scrambling around, wanting to play with the computers, me swatting them away without good effect. Somehow, they have learned to cycle their efforts, two of them go after my charting screens, and then as I turn to stop that, the other two attack my news screens, as though scratching at the screens will uncover new episodes of Peppa Pig.
It turns out the electrical switch threw in the junction box and a flip of the switch got the bubbles going again. Had I called our guy Datz, it would have been, like, “Hey! Mr. Gallea! Happy to stop by! Spring Break and all, so quadruple time on the clock, but hey, what choice do you have?”
Mind you, you’ve just been through 3 minutes with the grandchildren and I. Out of five days. Michael asks me how I’m doing. After one day, I simply glare at her. After three, I am in a sullen funk. After four, inconsolable, holed up in the bedroom, door locked, trying to ignore the more or less constant knocking and pounding at the door. I yell things like “Get out of here!” and “Go back to Maryland!” Instantly, I am consumed with guilt, grief, irritation, shortness of breath. I click together the heels of my shoes and chant “Go to a happy place. Go to a happy place.”
In my fevered state, I imagine the Holiday Inn across town being my happy place.
OK, OK, I exaggerate. We had four of them here, for the 4th of July, I think nine are showing up. Whenever they’re around, it always takes you back, doesn’t it? Raising your own and then you relive a lot of that with grandchildren.
I think in part, the attraction of grandparenting. It’s not that you get a do-over, more that you experience all over again the presence of all that promise inherent in the babies. We are greatly blessed. All of our kids are doing well, self-sufficient, family and work focused. They ask for nothing, we have to offer to help out.
I am reminded when you get three generations running around the planet, and when you get a fair number in each generation, you always have variations. Not all are above average, much as we like to believe they all are. Some are, of course, a couple may be precocious…time will tell. A couple have learning challenges; their parents are diligent in working on them.
But I think the main point we try to keep in mind is we want to raise good kids and grandkids focused on making good choices. Being good parents, good citizens, a charitable streak. Honesty, balance, working on education, fun to be with. Personal responsibility at the center of it all.
I think we all would agree that many don’t get that kind of family network and support. So many people just don’t have anything even close to resembling a normal family life and upbringing. Michael had one, I did not…my childhood and teenage years featured many difficulties and challenges.
But somehow, she and I arrived at essentially the same place and so you do learn that no matter what or how or from where you came, you can smooth out any wrinkles, you can choose to work on the life you want and the way you want to live it. Success of course, not at all guaranteed.
I can report that one great thing about the Spring Break visit was that it further honed my skills at Tickle Monster. I am pretty much in the elite category there, as measured by how quickly and how far I can scatter grandchildren with a kind of Frankenstein hobble-walk and a roar. Woe betide the squirming five-year old caught in the Monster Rib Tickle. Like Odysseus men in the Odyssey, the rest of them rush in to extricate the stricken victim from the Cyclops, pulling and tugging him free.
In life, you must have your enthusiasms, picking those things in which you wish to excel. It ain’t a bad choice, Tickle Monster.
Thoughts, questions, or reflections? I’d love to hear them. You can reach me anytime at anthony@workingprofit.com
