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We Are Family…

Today, I drove into my driveway and saw 2 of my grandsons playing in the front yard. I parked the car and my youngest grandson, in that family, opened the gate for me. I asked him if I could come in. He opened the gate wide, while he had one hand on the latching side of the gate. I asked him if I could go past. He took one step to the side, my cue for entering. I stepped close to him and he began to close the gate. He took one more step back and I took one step forward. We continued our dance until the gate was latched. Then he let go of the latching side and I could walk up to the front door. I called to say hello to his brother. My youngest grandson echoed my greeting as he followed me up the sidewalk. We both came inside and he immediately went looking for his mom.

I have thought about this as I have gone through the afternoon, helping with a quilt, riding my bike and doing the many other things on my “to do” list.

My grandson knows that we must stay in the gate to be safe. So, he wanted to make sure that I was safely inside before he closed the gate. He didn’t want me to be far away, after all he was at Mormor’s house, and now Mormor was at her house too. As soon as the gate was closed, we were all safe. We were home; we were safe; we were together. All is right in the world.

Grandchildren make life wonderful!

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All I Could Say Was…”Hello”

I recently watched part of the movie “Sleepless in Seattle”. The line used was a repeat of a line from the movie “An Affair to Remember”: “All I could say was ‘hello.’” “Hello” is one of my favorite words to hear, especially when it comes as a phone call from one of my grandchildren.

My almost three-year-old grandson has a beautiful sing-song voice. He calls from his mother’s cell phone and so I am not sure who I will speak with when I answer the phone. “Hello, Mormor.” My heart melts. No matter what I am doing, I stop and spend a few minutes to find out what is going on in his world. I enjoy conversations with his mother and now his baby brother can listen in and can hear me tell him that I love him.

My almost two-year-old grandson also calls me to talk. Recently, he started saying “hello” when I answer the phone. I repeat and he repeats. We do this several times before moving on to a conversation.

There aren’t a lot of words in our conversations sometimes, but he listens as I sing or tell him about my day or we remember a shared experience. The most important part of the conversation is when I talk to my grandchildren about loving them. I think that the greatest gift we can give our grandchildren is to let them know that we love them.

Yesterday, I spoke with a grandmother who had travelled a long distance to be with her grandson before he serves a mission for his church. I love to visit with Grace. Each time she comes, I get just a small glimpse into the joy she feels of being a mother and grandmother. She is a role model to me. Yesterday, two of her granddaughters came as we were finishing our visit. They love for her to cook for them. They say to her that she is a “good cooker.” Her grandchildren know that she loves them.

We show our love in so many ways. We speak our love, our actions say our love, and most of all we listen to those beautiful words, especially “Hello.” Can you share a story of how you show your love to with your grandchildren?

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Hot Potatoes

Yesterday was Christmas. For lunch we had baked potatoes. Our four year old granddaughter and her 20 month old brother were seated at the table while we were putting all the food on so that we could eat dinner. I warned the children not to touch the potatoes. They reached across and touched them anyway. “Hot!” said the 20 month old. Then I reminded him not to touch the potatoes. My four year old reached across again and the 20 month old followed again saying, “hot.” I moved the bowl of potatoes farther away so that even with reaching, they could not touch the bowl and get burned.

I thought about this exchange we were having as I was setting the table and they touched the potatoes even after being cautioned and having the experience of touching the hot potatoes. Even though their touch was just for a second, they still repeated the unpleasant experience. Perhaps, they wanted to know if the potatoes were still hot or perhaps they were just trying to show me that they had their choice to make and I couldn’t decide for them. I will never know. Four year olds and 20 month olds don’t always understand why they do things, nor can they explain to us. Even sometimes, we, as adults, don’t understand why we do things we do.

Do we ever make the same mistakes over and over again or do we learn from our mistakes and leave the “hot” things alone? During the next week, we will be setting our goals, putting our plans in place for 2010 and evaluating our progress of 2009. What will your progress be? What goals will you set for the coming year? What plans will you put in place so that you achieve those goals? And will you learn from the mistakes of the past and have a more peaceful life in the future?

Setting goals empowers us to move forward in our lives. How will you empower yourself today and in the coming year?

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Halloween is here!

Today is Halloween. As a child, I loved Halloween, most likely because my mother loved Halloween! We usually had a store bought costume until we were old enough to come up with ideas of our own.

One of my favorite memories of Halloween was when I was growing up in South Carolina. We lived in a house that was on a very busy road. On the opposite side of the road were many neighborhoods. My mother always was the parent who took us “trick or treating”. We would go from house to house until we were so tired we were ready to go home. My mother was the master encourager. She believed we could go farther than we ever thought imaginable. She pushed us just a little more. The prize was worth all the effort.

Pushing onward and forward has become a part of me. I learned that we “pick ourselves up by our boot straps” when we fall and “keep moving forward”. No matter what is happening “our ship is always coming in.”

Tonight, we will celebrate Halloween. We will go to our daughter’s home where we will have a birthday celebration for her son and then I will stay to give out “treats” while our children help her with her children as they go around the neighborhood. They will sing and talk and laugh and just enjoy being together. Isn’t that what life is all about?

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Welcome to the MPower Generations Grandparents Blog

Welcome to our grandparents blog. We invite grandparents to be our guest bloggers. Go to the Contact us page and enter your information and join us as a guest blogger.

This blog is to share our successes, our hopes, our dreams and our well learned knowlege about being a grandparent. Each day, we learn new ways to look at the world by participating in the lives of our grandchildren.

Sunday, some of our grandchildren were visiting with us after church. My six year old grandson said, “Mormor, do you want to be a ninja for Halloween?” I replied that I did not want to dress in a costume this year. He was not discouraged and proceeded to tell me all about his ninja costume. His excitement was contagious!

We love Halloween at our house. It is also our oldest grandson’s birthday. (We talk to our babies before they are born.  I tried to convince him before he was born to come on the 30th instead of Halloween, but undoubtedly he didn’t listen.)  So, we always have beautiful Halloweeen birthday cakes to celebrate the day. The whole country celebrates  on his birthday.  Then we participate in a church activity or trick or treating in their neighborhood.

As a grandparent, do you dress up? Do you give out candy? What are your family’s Halloween traditions? Please share them with us by making a comment.