Some of us might have noticed that the age span between us and our grandchildren is wider than between that of us and our children. This is especially pronounced if we gave birth to our own children at the tender age of twenty-something, but, unlike us, our children felt the need to delay the production of offspring until they had accomplished certain minor things in life. These might have included one or more of the following:
1. maturing
2. living like adults
3. making money
4. having a house
5. being responsible
6. washing their own socks
7. storing beer in the refrigerator instead of under the bed
The result is that our children become parents for the first time when they are in their mid-thirties (or older) and the arrival of our first grandchild thus coincides with the arrival of our first social security check. Just when we are first cradling that precious small object that provides such infinite joy (the social security check, not the grandchild), we note that our children, who have suddenly and dramatically morphed into PARENTS, require the same morphing of us, without our having had the advantage of taking classes and/or medication to prepare us.
Whether our children are around the corner or across the globe, there will be times we will be called upon to exercise our new skills as grandparents. The following situations may seem dicey at first, but they each come with handy advice to make the task a bit easier:
1. diapering a newborn male-Put on a raincoat before attempting. Clean floor or rug or ceiling after.
2. bathing a newborn-Fill a tub with warm, sudsy water, put in lots of toys, splash and laugh. After you are finished, dry yourself off, and only then attempt to bathe the newborn or toddler.
3. extricating a toddler from under a chair/table/hostess station/taco making machine at a Mexican restaurant/fish tank at a Chinese restaurant-If a parent is in the vicinity (Make sure the parent is associated with the toddler in some way and not some random person eating dinner), rush off to the bathroom as you mumble “Prostrate” or “Aging bladder” or grab the check and rush off to the cashier to pay for dinner, leaving your child to deal with the situation. Whatever the expense, it is worth it.
4. housing small beings while their parents flit off to Dubai or Florida or someplace else that you could never afford to go to and can’t place on a map-Make room in your kitchen for the coffee mug that will say “Grandmas rock!”
5. being required to respond to urgent verbalizations such as “Webbie ahpwane ma!” or “Dosh abu kidder neyney!”-Save your energy trying to figure it out. Just give the toddler a cookie and tell him to go away.
For more tips on dealing with a newborn or a toddler, or for the best advice on adult bath toys, send a large check and an SASE.
notquiteold
September 26, 2011
My brother and his wife had their children very late… so I am running after nephews and niece young enough to be my grandchildren. After chasing the four-year-old around the park, she complained, “Auncy (that’s what she called me (for Aunt Nancy), and I mourn her turning five, I loved it so much), You are too SWEATY!” Oh, and I definitely was.
lifeintheboomerlane
September 26, 2011
Ah, remember when we used to get sweaty doing other things?
Alaina
September 26, 2011
My parents had me in their (very!) early 20s, and here I am, twenty-eight years old, four years married, and still hemming and hawing over whether I could really handle being a mom.
FYI, I linked you in my versatile blogger award post this afternoon. I don’t want you to go through the whole thing again though. Just know that you’re great.
lifeintheboomerlane
September 26, 2011
Wow, thanks Alaina! And, yes, times have changed. Your generation seems a lot more deliberate about considering getting married and having children. My generation just happily leaped off the cliff. Some of us actually survived. Barely.
joem18b
September 26, 2011
We had the grandchildren over for the weekend (ages 3 and 4). We’re 66 and 67. Gave them a makeup kit for kids that we brought back from a visit to Japan. Each bit of makeup tastes like a different candy, which means that they put it on and in seconds it’s gone, and they put it on again, and then it’s gone again, and…
This was an activity that we forgot to tell the parents about later.
lifeintheboomerlane
September 27, 2011
This is a great story, one that is better kept from the parents. And I seriously want that make up for myself.
k8edid
September 26, 2011
Great advice. I was a young grandma (Nanny, to the grandkids) at 45. I miss them terribly. I hope to be young enough to dance at their weddings (provided young people still do that sort of thing)
Your picture is priceless, but I’ve looked and I can’t find the hidden camera in my bathroom.
lifeintheboomerlane
September 26, 2011
I just laughed out loud at your bathroom comment. Yes, having grandchildren at a young age has it’s advantages. I won’t be at my grandchildrens’ weddings unless they get married in middle school. That was a joke, but if they do wait as long as my kids did, I would be in my 90s, and I wouldn’t be able to wear my stilletos.
k8edid
September 27, 2011
Doesn’t Dr. Scholl’s make an orthopedic stiletto?
Kathryn McCullough
September 27, 2011
My mother seemed to get better with kids once she hit 70. Or might that be senility?
Kathy
lifeintheboomerlane
September 27, 2011
If so, it’s a good form of senility.
Deborah the Closet Monster
September 27, 2011
My mom . . . how shall I phrase this? She had me on her 21st birthday and thus started, the moment I turned 21, “strongly encouraging” me to get married and have children. Sometimes when I’d ask her if she just wanted me to stand on the corner with a “WILL PROCREATE WITH FIRST ELIGIBLE BACHELOR” sign, she’d say she absolutely didn’t advocate that. Sometimes, though, the idea looked like it held a certain appeal for her.
I sometimes wish I’d done it a little closer to the timeline she favored so she could have seen more of Li’l D’s life, but I’m so grateful she got to see what she did. And I’m glad I get to have moments of imagining what “more” would have been like through sweet, silly posts like this. 🙂
lifeintheboomerlane
September 27, 2011
Ah Deborah, methinks there’s no magic answer to what is optimal as parents or grandparents. I remember when my son was just a couple months old, I got pregnant again. My mom was very sick at the time and losing her battle with cancer. She adored my son, but I knew she wanted a granddaughter also, because I was an only child and it would have been like seeing me again as a baby. When my daughter, the “accident,” was born, it was a miracle that my mom was home and not in the hospital. I called her at 2AM and yelled into the phone, “You have a granddaughter!” Eight months later, my mom was gone. My daughter was the best “accident” ever, for several reasons.
Deborah the Closet Monster
September 27, 2011
This gave me goosebumps. Such love!
That’s what Li’l D to me is, too: the best “accident” ever. Part of why I feel so emotional at his birthday is remembering all my emotions around the time of his birth, a huge part of which reflected my wondering how much of his life my mom would be around to see.
Tomorrow’s birthday entry has a little collage of pictures of him at each of his first-year month birthdays; they’re the pictures in his baby book. In eleven of those pictures, he’s alone. In the two-month picture, he’s asleep and scrunchy-faced against my mother’s chest. Light is flowing through the windows around them.
I took the picture moments before we hopped in the car to drive back down to Los Angeles, and it’s memory of those moments that fills me with such love, wonder and gratitude. If my life had gone in accord with my plans, I would neither have that picture, nor the kind of moments it captured.
Thank goodness for this kind of accident!
♥
She's a Maineiac
September 27, 2011
Solid advice! (that picture is still making me laugh) I’m afraid I’m well on my way to reaching that point in my life. I had my daughter at 36, so that means I’ll be around 120 once she gets around to having my grandkids. So, to prepare, I practice handing my husband a cookie and saying, “go away”. 😀
lifeintheboomerlane
September 27, 2011
That’s actually great advice for anyone who is married.
pegoleg
September 27, 2011
I don’t envision grandkids anytime soon, as neither daughter is excited about the prospect. I do want them to spread their wings, but the thought of never having ANY is sad.
So, hey, great response to a hilarious post, right?
I love your photo – that’s rub-a-dubbing in style!
lifeintheboomerlane
September 27, 2011
I’ve heard stories like yours before. In my case, my first grandchild arrived when my daughter was 33. I feel like these is a great business opportunity here, “Adopt A Grandchild.”
Elly Lou
September 27, 2011
I’ll be sending this to Pegger the Kegger, obviously. And taking the beer out from under my bed.
lifeintheboomerlane
September 27, 2011
Seriously. It’s time. Gotta make room eventually anyway for random pacifiers, bits of chewed up Cheerios, mateless socks, Legos, tiny ukuleles, glittery unicorns….
winsomebella
September 28, 2011
Had to re-visit to get another chuckle out of that picture!
Sylvia Morice
September 29, 2011
Hi there–came across your blog from “notquiteold”s site…and I want to say that I am so happy I did! Love your posts and will be back again. Also, I’m with you about the grandchildren…I was twenty five when my son was born and 28 when my daughter came along…both kids are now 30+ and there is no sign of any babies yet for either of them (well, obviously my son wouldn’t be having a baby, but I mean for his significant other…).My daughter is getting married next summer, so who knows what might happen after that! Even for that wedding dance I’ll be wearing my orthopedic shoes, I imagine…sucks.
lifeintheboomerlane
September 29, 2011
Wow, thanks so much Sylvia. It is amazing, isn’t it, the difference between us and them? I mean aside from our knowing all the answers and the way the world should be. A close friend of mine just got word that she will finally be a grandmother at age 71.
Joyce Bell Kramer
September 29, 2011
Well, now I feel thoroughly prepared to be a grandmother! Thanks for the timely advice!
lifeintheboomerlane
September 29, 2011
I have more but it’ll cost you. Also, I can unly send it to you in an unmarked brown paper bag.
mzem
September 29, 2011
Oh, this was a great post and I loved the photo. Fortunately or unfortunately, my son chose to move to Hawaii to have my grandson. This means I have missed out on all of your examples. I just found son and grandson on Face Book and my grandson is very handsome. However, since my son is a year away from turning 40, to see his photo, makes me complain, “I am not old enough to have a 40-year-old son!”
lifeintheboomerlane
September 30, 2011
Thanks! I know how tough it is to be far from kids and grandchildren. My daughter lives in London and had both of her sons there. But luckily, I was there for both events, and between my trips there and hers here, I see my grandchildren every couple months. I can relate to the “I am not old enough…” statement. When I tell people my kid’s ages (36, 35, 30) I listen to myself and it sounds totally crazy.