A Bug's Life is Important, Too!

One of the most rewarding advantages to being a grandmother is perhaps reliving the innocence of youth.  Children have a way of looking at things that we adults have forgotten ever existed.  Delilah spent the night with me last night and we were on the patio behind the house.  As normal, she wanted to feed the fish in the fish pond, or the "shish" as she calls them.  She was leaning over the side of the pond looking for the goldfish, who must have retired for the evening, when I saw a tiny green inchworm-type creature on the side of the railing of the pond.  Pointing the little worm out to Dee, she immediately went to retrieve her butterfly net, which hangs on a little nail down low where she can reach it.  She wanted me to get the worm into the net so she could put him over in the garden where he could go back to his"shamily" (family). 

This little ritual was repeated just a short time later when we were in the Laundry Room, where a cricket had wandered in.  Again, it was "Grammy, I need my butterfly net!"  After getting the butterfly net, we scooped the little cricket up into the net and promptly returned him to the outside world, where we released him to be reunited with his loved ones (or at least that's what she thought).

Children have such a wonderful way of looking at the world around us that we as adults are too busy to even see sometimes.  Their innocence and honesty is our natural state as human beings; it is the responsibilities in life that are hung around our necks in the process of growing up that makes us forget this. 

In the Beginning

In the very beginning, you were merely a wish in your Mommy's heart. You were not the first, you see. There was a baby before you that was taken away on the same day your Mommy's Nani died. Grammy thinks maybe that Nani took the baby with her because she loved babies so much and didn't want to be alone. That was a very sad day, Delilah. Mommy and Grammy didn't know if they would make it through that day, but they did. They were sad for a long time.

Mommy and Daddy used to have a dog they loved very much and her name was Emma. They had gotten Emma from the Animal Shelter shortly after they were married, so Emma was about 7 years old. One day, Emma got sick and she died, which of course made Mommy and Daddy even sadder. Mommy cried all the time. I finally told her I thought she needed to get another puppy so she would be happy. So Mommy went to the Animal Shelter and she found Sophie. Sophie was so cute and little, but her ears were almost as big as she was! The lady at the Animal Shelter told Mommy that Sophie would not get very big, but boy, was she wrong! More about Sophie later.

One day in February of 2010, shortly after they got Sophie, Mommy called me before I even went to work. She and Daddy had been wanting to try to have another baby. When I got there, we did a test to tell us that she would be having another baby. We were all so excited!

Mommy worked in an office when you were in her tummy. She used to call me at work and send me e-mails and she would say, the baby is as big as a seed, then the baby is as big as a lentil bean. We didn't know if you would be a boy baby or a girl baby, but I didn't want to call you an "it", so I decided that a lentil is like a pea and I would call you "Sweet Pea" because that would fit whether you were a boy or a girl. So that's what I called you before you were born.

Little Piggies

These little feet are precious to me.  I loved them before they were even born.  I've kissed them, cleaned them and marveled at them as they began to take their first steps.  I hope that God will allow me to watch them as they pedal a bicycle for the first time, walk across a stage at graduation and dance at their wedding.  I know that the person they support will do great things in her life, and one day my granddaughter will look back and remember the grandmother that loved her with all her heart.

I am Grammy

My baby granddaughter is 7 months old and I am completely smitten with her! There is something about the way a baby smells, the wonderful texture of their skin, the pure innocence of their expression, that affirms that all is right with the world. Being in her presence is like a drug - the more you get, the more you want. I think as a grandparent, it takes me back to all the wonder and hope that I had for my own two children when they were little (not that they didn't turn out spectacular, imo). But I think it's just that you're so caught up in the "have-to's" when your kids are little and busy with just getting through the day that you don't have the time to enjoy the sheer wonder of them. You can't realize how quickly time passes until you're on the downhill side of life. Friends always told me that there was nothing like having a grandchild, but that's something you can't understand until you're there.