Personal Hygiene Took a Holiday

I know grandparents like to 'spoil' the kids but there is a fine line between 'spoiling' and 'enabling'.

The kids went to see grandpa all this past weekend and we hoped that all of the talks about being 'responsible' were sinking in. The only good thing that happened was that Peanut didn't bite her nails like she usually does. She was SO proud to show us on Sunday when we picked them up. ***

Usually, Grandpa feeds them crap. Okay, fine. It's just a day or two. But this weekend was the worst. For breakfast Saturday, they had garlic cheese toast? Cheeseburgers for lunch on Saturday and more cheese toast for dinner? Breakfast on Sunday? More garlic cheese toast and pizza for lunch.
This man had a heart attack a few years ago due to the crap he shovels into his body. So, it's a good idea to teach the kids to do it, too? No.

And neither kid brushed their teeth. ALL WEEKEND. What. The Hell.
They brush them morning and night here and they have NEVER tried to get out of it. Never. And I know they are just 7 and 10, but they know better.
And why didn't the adult make sure they did it?
That explained why Peanut's breath smelled like feet.

And to top it off? He bought them new bikes (too small for both kids) and no helmets.
Look, I am not a 'helicopter parent' but helmets are a necessity. They aren't great at riding bikes and have a tendency to fall over when making turns. I don't care if they wear pads or not but helmets are needed with clumsy little kids.
And it's not a matter of one of them 'might' have fallen.
Peanut DID fall off. And she hit her head, left temple.
Luckily, it wasn't too serious. But it could have been. Dammit.

I told my mom about it all today. And usually, she says stuff like 'rules are different at grandparent's houses'. Today? She was astounded... and disgusted about the personal hygiene. She would have NEVER let me go all weekend not brushing my teeth. Gross.

Rules have to be somewhat the same when the kids travel to other houses in the family. It's too confusing for a child to have certain rules at one house and almost no rules at another. For example,  cleaning up their crap. Daycare always made them clean up. School always makes them clean up. We have ALWAYS made them clean up. The grandparents don't make them clean up. And it's tough to correct that. And it's always US that has to put the work into getting the bad habits back out of them.

Back when the kids stayed with their bio mom for a week at a time, we had a HELL of a time getting them back to normal the next week. She let them stay up way too late, get up way too early, eat junk, etc. (But she did make them brush their TEETH!) It was just a week but to a kid like Peanut, a week is the equivalent to a month.

Pretty much every time we go out of town, we send the kids to one of the grandparents and then they switch off mid week. And every time we come home, we go through stuff similar to this mess. And it's killing us. We cannot handle much more of it. Something has to be done before we lose our freaking minds... or the kids teeth rot out.

***I can see why she didn't bite them. You wouldn't want to stick anything that nasty and dirty in your mouth either. Nasty. Looked like she has been digging in the dirt all weekend.