Joann Ernst, 72, shook her head as her older grandson decapitated an action figure. The other laid out puzzle pieces in a line, surrounded by a sea of toys.
“You have to put all the Play-Doh back in the container so it doesn’t dry out,” Ernst called out to the 5- and 7-year olds.
Ernst is not the boys’ legal guardian. She’s spent the past two years living with her son Jack, helping with her grandsons on weekends. Jack had struggled to work after losing an arm in an accident, so Ernst took a job in the special education department of a local school, paid his rent, and spent weekends shopping for the boys and disciplining them “as a mother…
