I'm not sure if my adult son and the father of my grandchildren remembers hearing such things from me and saying such things back to me when he was the age his children are now. I will find out. But for now, I just don't know.

I do know that somehow the same sort of banter I had years ago with the one person I loved more than any is the same sort of banter that has begun with a couple of folks I love just as much – my grandsons. And just as their dad did so many years ago, so too do my new young pals seem to get carried away with the delight of it all.

I can still hear my young son from so many years ago. But that's an easy recollection these days. His sons now say exactly the same things back to me and with exactly the same vocal inflections and laughter. It's a simple but thorough thrill for a simple and thoroughly old man.

Against adult warnings of “don't get them riled,” I tend to confront, antagonize just a bit, and rile the young guys. And it almost always ends with periods of me saying and hearing the same things I said and heard as a young dad when I riled my son some 20-plus years ago.

“Knucklehead,” I say to them.

“You're the knucklehead,” they say back to me.

“No, YOU'RE the knucklehead,” I remind them.

“You knuckle head!” they repeat.

And it goes on and on until whichever one I am with at the time reduces our intellectual conversation to words like, “You're a do-do,” or “You're a pee-pee butt.” The youngest grandson has sort of condensed that last declaration into, “You're a peanut!” I'll take that.

But most of all, I will take whatever they can dish out. Young-ins' need to dish sometimes. Maybe often. When they can do it with laughter and joy, they seem to tend not to carry much guilt about it. That's my thought, anyway.

A couple of times when my son was young, I remember playing with him and getting the child so riled that he got physical with me. He swung his tiny fists at me, and he landed more than a few punches. I just covered my face and let him swing away. He needed that at the time.

A couple of years ago, the same thing happened with my son's oldest child and me. I gave that young child the same allowances I gave his dad so many years ago. That kid whaled on me good – much better than his dad did. And just like his dad when he was a child, my grandson ended the pummeling with laughter and delight and the certain knowledge that it's okay to feel some things and to express them. And then it was okay for him to move on to more wholesome things.

Kids just need to vent sometimes, too. Taking a few tiny and weak punches from an enraged pre-schooler is a tiny price to pay to strengthen the self-esteem of a kid one loves. I just hope the youngest grandson doesn't need to vent the way his dad and brother did. That young one is much bigger and stronger.

Then again, he can't hurt me. All I would have to do is to remind that young guy that HE is the peanut. And just as with his dad and brother, the pummeling would surely end with a smile, laughter and an ultimate declaration from the young guy.

“YOU'RE the peanut!”

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