Being a mother is a wonderful experience that is surpassed by little else in this world. However, there is a certain freedom about being a grandma that makes it a lot more fun. Several years ago, David and I stayed with our two grandchildren for a few days while Christian and Amy celebrated his birthday in Las Vegas. Here are a few thoughts I jotted down after that experience.
Published in the Rains County Leader on November 17, 2015:
David and I spent almost the entire month of October on the road. We left home on October 2 and returned over six thousand miles later on October 29. The main destination as far as I was concerned was Beaverton, Oregon, a suburb of Portland where my two amazing grandchildren live. Their parents live there, too, but the grands were the main attraction.
I’m feeling a little old lately. Sunday afternoon I even dozed off for a few minutes during the football game. Not for long, though, because I woke up when I heard David snapping a picture of me, a photo that ended up on Facebook. There was a time when a person could grab a few winks on a Sunday afternoon without being harassed by the paparazzi, but at least I had my mouth closed.
One reason I’m feeling a bit on the elderly side is strictly physical. Saturday I worked in the garden for a few hours, and my body was a little mad at me over the weekend. I felt fine as long as I was sitting still, but every time I sat or stood or otherwise shifted positions, those muscles that I hadn’t used in a couple of months protested rather vigorously.
Aside from the physical, there are other reasons I’m feeling my age. For one thing, our granddaughter just had her 6th birthday. We couldn’t go to Oregon to celebrate, but we had a Face Time conversation with her. She is so grown up that I had visions of her in a cap and gown and maybe even a wedding dress, and I sighed as I envisioned the years flying by.
As if that weren’t enough, our son has been complaining about his advancing age. He’s a young 43, but he was recently shocked when he was offered a senior discount at the grocery store. His fading youth was further insulted when his eye doctor prescribed bifocals. He tried to soften the blow by calling them transitional lenses, but the damage was done. He and I both felt the years piling up.
All of this was bad, but the thing that has made me feel the oldest is an email I received last week announcing plans for a high school class reunion – the 50th. Yes, it has been fifty years since I donned my own cap and gown and celebrated the successful completion of twelve years of education. My class is not very active, so our last reunion was thirty years ago. However, thanks to the Internet and social media, no one will expect us to be as young and beautiful as we were then. This time, instead of comparing careers and children, we’ll probably be competing to see who has had the most joints replaced and whose grandchildren are superior. It will be fun to reminisce and reconnect, but the coming event adds to my feelings of advancing age.
It’s not all bad, though. As for the physical aches and pains, a few pain pills and a hot shower or two made me feel normal again. When it comes to my aging son and my growing grandchildren, I’m in reasonably good health, and with the Good Lord’s help, I’ll have the privilege of celebrating many important life events with them. The reunion? I still have mixed feelings, but I’ll probably go, and I’ll probably enjoy it. After all, my grandchildren are definitely the most beautiful and the most brilliant.
Blessings,
Linda
A LONG AND WINDING ROAD: A Caregiver’s Tale of Life, Love, and Chaos
If you live in an area where you’re still shoveling snow and scraping ice, please don’t hate me when I tell you that Saturday was sunny with a high of 73 here in Emory. It was a good day to be outside and to learn a valuable lesson about tomatoes and spiritual fruit.
As soon as we finished breakfast, David grabbed his tools and headed to the back of the lot where he’s winning the war against years of fallen trees and tangled underbrush. With a little more cutting and a few more bonfires, we’ll be able to see the creek bank all the way along the property line. I went outside, too, but I opted for the lighter duty of working in the garden. However, after 5 hours of weeding and planting, muscles that are more accustomed to sitting at a keyboard than bending and squatting are not sure it was such light duty. (more…)
If you’re new to my blog, you may not know that my son Christian Piatt is, in his own words, an author, speaker, antagonist, and God nerd. He writes on topics ranging from Christianity to politics to family life, but up to now, he has stayed with non-fiction.
His latest project is different in a couple of ways. First it’s fiction, and second, he’s planning to self-publish. In order to fund the project, he mounted a KickStarter campaign. He’s about halfway to his goal, but with only a few days left in this all or nothing venture, he’s pulled out the big guns – the kids. The video they put together is worth watching if for no other reason than to see Zoe bat her eyelashes.
I’ve been working on another Christmas-related post for several days, but last night after several more starts and restarts, I gave it up as a bad idea. Knowing that I wouldn’t have time to do any writing today, I went back to the archives to see what I could recycle. What could be better at Christmas than children reading Christmas stories – so here’s my granddaughter Zoe, just shy of her third birthday, “reading” her version of “Olivia Helps with Christmas.”
Of course, I can’t play favorites, so here’s my grandson Mattias who had just turned 8 reading a story he wrote and illustrated called “The Reindeer Who Had Fear to Fly.”
I have good news and bad news. First, the good news. My ankle is now healed to the point that I am now wearing two shoes. (To read why I wasn’t, click HERE.) The bad news is that I am still sans computer. (To read about that, click HERE.) I managed a little time at David’s keyboard, so I thought I’d share a cute grandparent story about creationism versus evolution and a short video about caregiving by Jeff Foxworthy of “You Might Be a Redneck If…” fame. (more…)
Group shot from Mesquite High School yearbook – 1965
We visited our kids and grandkids in Portland a few months ago, and I spent a good deal of time talking with Mattias, the 9 year old. He likes to talk – a lot – and he asks lots of questions. One of his favorites is How were things different when you were a kid? When we got home, I wrote several posts addressing the olden days, and this is the next in the series. There are links to earlier posts at the end of this one.
Kids dressed a lot differently in the 50s and 60s than they do now. One of the big differences was shoes. Shoes were usually made of leather, had smooth soles, and were brown or black. Tennis shoes were for gym class and the tennis court, and there were two choices, black high tops for the boys and white Keds for the girls. (more…)
A few weeks ago, one of my social media friends contacted me and asked if I might consider sharing this post with my readers. My first inclination was to say that, although there is some valuable information here, not many of my readers are nannies. But after I read the article, I realized these are good suggestions not only for nannies but also for grannies and even for caregivers. Enjoy! (more…)
Mattias, my grandparent situation was a lot different than yours when I was a kid. For one thing, I only had three instead the crowd you have. Grandmother and Granddaddy Robinson (my dad’s parents) were still married to their original spouses, and Granny Hagan (my mom’s mother) was a widow. Her husband died several years before I was born.
My grandparents had strange names. Mom’s father was Ralph Charles Hagan which wasn’t too unusual, but her mother was Alva Lee (Cox) Hagan. Dad’s father was Oscar Lee Robinson and his mother was Iona Florence (Yandall) Robinson. Not quite the same as David, Linda, Mark, Mary Kay, Suzie, and Russ. It didn’t matter that much because we didn’t call them by their first names anyway. (more…)
The story of a lonely, innocent girl who gets tangled up in the sex trafficking trade in a small Texas town. It’s about her relationship with Eric, a slick suburban pimp; Jesse, a Christian tattoo artist and motorcycle rider; and Mrs. G, a compassionate but tough attorney and foster parent.
Being a mother is a wonderful experience that is surpassed by little else in this world. However, there is a certain freedom about being a grandma that makes it a lot more fun. Several years ago, David and I stayed with our two grandchildren for a few days while Christian and Amy celebrated his birthday in Las Vegas. Here are a few thoughts I jotted down after that experience.
Linda Brendle's Life After Caregiving 