Little Hamish

Hamish is the youngest of the McGregor grandchidren. He is five years old. He has two older brothers and two older sisters. His eldest sibling is Eva and she is twelve years old. Oliver is next at ten. Belma and Will are twins and they are two years older than Hamish.

When Hamish was first beginning to walk, he "assisted" his Mom with her vacuuming by holding on to the hose for stability. His Mom, busy as she is/was with five kids and a law practice appreciated this "help". She let the other kids know that Hamish was a good example to follow.

The word about Hamish helping out with vacuuming got back to his grandmother who was overjoyed at the news. She bought Hamish a toy vacuum cleaner. Both Erin and Hamish were delighted when the toy arrived. Hamish took to it immediately and after learning how to walk on his own, Hamish would joyfully vaccuum the house with his toy from "Gammy".

His brothers and sisters made note of the vauuming
They came to the conclusion that Hamey was not only the favorite of their mother but also the favorite of their Gammy. This conclusion was amplified when Gammy came to visit. Gammy, the ultra fastidiuous, always attacked the chaos and debris of the household with maternal vengeance. Organizing, washing, scrubbing, and vaccuming with gusto with little Hamish shadowing her every move.

Now that Hamish is five and no longer toddling, his interests have shifted to the usual running around, jumping off couches, knocking things over and contributing to the domestc chaos, contributing far more to the problem than to the solution

The other brothers and sisters, engaged in a fierce sibling rivalry of their own began to aim some of their grenades at Hamish. Oliver in particular. Suddenly sensitive to the messes that he had helped to create, Oliver began to criticize his Mom on her housekeeping.

Last week with the five kids and Erin in the van soccermomming, Oliver out of nowhere suggested that 
"Gammy's toilets were cleaner than our kitchen sink". Eva remained quiet while the twins, themselves befoulers of many a sink, started agreeing with Oliver and making nasty fun of their Mom.

Hamish defended his Mom.

In response to his baby brother's childish defense, Oliver delivered this:

"Hamish, you just say that because your Mom and Gammy's favorite. I bet you didn't know that Mom was going to ship you off to Gammy's where you would have to wear a red house coat and glasses and vacuum all day and all night."

Hamish astounded the acr when he responed with this:

"Oh yeah, well Mom and dad are going to send YOU off to a 'militray' school in Connecticut".

Erin had no idea how Hamish came up with the word Connecticut as it was the first time that he had ever uttered the word as well as the first time he had ever said the word 'miltray'.

When they got home Hamish approached his Mom and asked her if he would really have ti go to Gammy's and wear a husecoat and glasses and vaccuum all day.

Shortly after, the story got back to Gammy who was in fact vacuuming when Erin called to relate the episode. Gammy laughed and laughed. Gammy wondered how Hamish had come up with the threat about sending Oliver off to military school. The only thing that Erin could recall was once after one of Oliver's outrages that her husband Scott had commented "we got to send that kid off to a military school in Connecticut."

Hamish must have heard that and filed it away although he had no concept of what it actually meant.

Yesterday Gammy did a little introspection of her own. She decided that she was no longer going to wear her housecoat when she vacuumed.

She couldn't do anything about the glasses.