The Gift of Grandparents

Is there anything more special than the bond between a grandchild and grandparent?

Not to me.

I want my kids to be close to their grandparents. I want them to develop that bond with those four special people that God put in their lives. The love between a grandchild and grandparent is so special. After all, they've raised their children.

Their job now is just to love and spoil their grandchildren.





My mother's father passed away before I was born. I never had the chance to know him. As a child, I always wondered what he was like. I would ask my mother all kinds of questions because I wanted to somehow "know" this man who I had never met.

I had a wonderful relationship with my other grandparents and I was especially close to my mother's mother. Whenever my parents went out of town, my grandmother would come to our house and stay with me and my sister. She LOVED playing board games and always carried dice around in a Bufferin bottle in her purse. No matter where we were, she was ready to play!

Her favorite game to play was a board game called "Aggravation" (wonderful name by the way) and there is no telling how many hours she and I spent playing it. It is - without question - one of my most special memories from childhood.

All of my grandparents have passed away, but I was blessed to have had them in my life for so long. My grandmothers both passed away when I was in high school and my sweet, precious grandfather passed away a couple of months after Lily was born.

This special bond is so important to me and Chris that we named AC after both of her grandmothers and LB is named after Chris' grandmother, who is such a precious woman and who filled the "grandmother void" that I have had since my grandmothers died.

All this to set the scene from last night. AC and LB wanted to spend the night with Mimi and Poppy (my parents). After we ate dinner, we bathed them and then I took them to my parents' house.

As soon as my kids walk into my parents' house, they head for the candy jars. Doesn't matter what time of day it is or whether they need to eat dinner or lunch, they get whatever they want.

And you know what?

That's how it should be.

A grandparent's home is special. I remember when I saw AC drinking coke for the first time. She was about one and my dad was giving her soda. The neurotic mother in me is thinking, "She can't have soda yet!! She's only one!!"

But the mother who wants her children to have that same relationship I had with my grandparents says, "Go ahead. Do it."

So as I walked out last night, I left my parents and my children sitting at the dinner table. As mom and dad ate their dinner, the girls were eating Lucky Charms (only picking out the sweet charms, mind you) and drinking Dr. Pepper.

Would that ever happen at my house at 8 p.m.?

ARE YOU SERIOUS??!!

No way!

But at Mimi and Poppy's house, it's just fine.

And that's the way it should be.