Grandkid Love

GrandKid Insights February 2024

“We can love grandkids and they can love us back, at best this relationship is purest and golden. “

Mary Pipher, author Women Rowing North

Hello Friends,

Valentine’s day is not just for sweethearts!

Last week I eagerly popped up the craft table and filled it with red construction paper, Elmers’s glue, doilies, paint and glitter. Grandma, that’s me, staged a valentine’s card making activity for my adorable grandchildren. Then I set out to fetch ‘em.  I picked up Callen from pre-school and Brielle from kindergarten. Our project would give them something creative to do and my thinking was it would be an act of kindness that would show their love.    

Of course, they do that quite naturally.  When I arrived to retrieve Callen, he bounded up to me. I picked him up in my arms and felt his warm body relax into my chest while his head rested on my shoulder.  I swayed from side to side like I’ve done since he was an infant. He gave me that tender moment, one that belonged to just us.

Brielle with a two-front-teeth missing smile, handed me her painting.   “Here Grandma. I painted this for you.”   I still get this giddy, giggly feeling when she calls me grandma.  I’m her grandma. It still seems surreal. On the way home she sang softly in the back seat. Her sweet, meditative sounds brought me back into the moment and I began to hum along with her. We drove towards the sun low in the gray, winter sky. 

I pulled out the step stools so they could help peel hard boiled eggs or spread peanut butter and jelly on bread for snack before we got started on our card making project. I always have their favorite foods at my house:  oatmeal, fig bars, yogurts, honey bunny graham crackers, orange juice, peanut butter, raspberry jelly… and popsicles. I let them do things that their parents wouldn’t let them. (Shhhhhh!) I won’t tell you what.  I like that I’m not a parent, that I can be the one that doesn’t have to be responsible for their daily lives.  

I know how fortunate I am to have them in my life. I wished everyone did, yet I know many families are torn apart by distance or estrangement.  I only had one grandparent growing up, my grandma. I now realize how endearing and important that relationship was not only for my child self, but now as a grandmother. I remember her and try to do what she did.

In the days that followed their visit, sparkles of glitter decorated my floors. Glitter just gets everywhere! And it doesn’t bother me at all. Seeing it reminds me of our time together when I am absorbed in their world, one of imagination and playful discovery.

And it is true. When the day is done, they go home and I can recover!  

Ancient Irish Blessing:  Children are the rainbow of life. Grandchildren are the pot of gold.

Intention: Love.