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Thinking back, I’m not sure how or when it happened.

We were going along, quite comfortably, set in our habits and routine. When you get older, you know, you take a certain amount of comfort from routine. I guess following that routine allows you to believe that you haven’t completely surrendered to the indignities of advancing age.

At least, that’s how I think of our lives before — before the change, that is. We were, more or less, in control. We got up when we wanted to, did what we wanted to, ate what we wanted to, went to bed when we wanted to — the whole nine yards.

And then our grandson came for an extended visit. Talk about setting a cat amongst the pigeons. Plunk a normal, healthy toddler down in a well-regulated, tidy household, established in its routines and priorities, and what do you get? Bedlam.

The world is suddenly turned upside down. It’s not exactly that there’s no schedule anymore: it’s just that it’s not our schedule. Where things formerly moved at a regular, established pace, we have substituted what sometimes seems to be chaos, but in reality is just another sort of order. I’m sure if you could look at our house from some other vantage point, say from outer space, it might seem all to be in perfect order.

He’s been here a little over a week now. Jonas is just a couple of months shy of his second birthday. When he’s not turning our world upside down he lives with his father and his mother (our youngest daughter) in Virginia. He and his mother came to stay with us while his father is off on an extended business trip.

He’s been here a couple of times before, but never on such a long visit and never when he had such a high level of energy and such a range. I mean, before we could sit and pass him around and admire him, and then he went back into the playpen for another nap.

He still takes one or two naps a day, but the rest of the time he’s in motion, running pell-mell from one end of the house to the other.

Needless to say, we didn’t have the foresight to toddler-proof our house. There is a stunning variety of gimcracks and doodads on shelves, some even just on the floor, all within easy reach.

In all honesty I have to say the cat has had a worse time of it than we have. If our routines have been upset a little, at least that is balanced by the fact that we like having the little guy around.

Readers who have read this column with some regularity may recall that our cat has a disposition more like that of a rattlesnake. She doesn’t like having people around at all, and particularly not little people, who poke and prod and pull and chase her.

Our older grandchildren have learned to give the cat a wide berth on their visits, but Jonas, for his part, is without fear. The cat hisses and snaps at him, batting him with de-clawed paws, and he laughs gleefully and wades in for more.

Jonas has learned the throwing game. He practices it with a little ball that came in his basket of toys, or sometimes with the potatoes from the basket where they’re kept in the kitchen. And of course any cup or glass of water, coffee or any other beverage left even for a moment on an end table is fair game. (He doesn’t throw them, but their contents are apt to hit the floor in any case.)

Despite all these dislocations, we are captivated of course. We surrendered right away, but there was no real feeling of loss. That will come when he goes home.

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