Grandma

Well, it has happened. I am calling myself "Grandma". As in, "Would you like Grandma to change your diaper, Juliet?" and "Can Grandma hold her?" Yikes! I used to cringe when my own mother would say things like that. Even a few months ago I wanted to be a grandmother, but didn't really want anyone calling me Grandma; it just sounds so old. And now here I am, proudly announcing to the world that yes, I am this child's grandmother. I think all the fear of being thought old goes out the window when you see the child of your child.

I was young and naive when I had Matthew; of course I thought he was the most beautiful baby in the world, but I was also busy being a new mother, over-tired and just trying to get through each day. I was blissfully ignorant of what I should have been doing, and just did what I felt was right. Sometimes it was, sometimes it wasn't. Today's new parents seem to be overwhelmed with warnings about everything, and I wonder if their kids will be safer, or just more neurotic. When Matthew was a child, pregnant moms smoked and drank, cars didn't have seat belts, no one used bike helmets, and we let our kids drink out of the garden hose and slide down the stairs in a cardboard box. It's a miracle any of our kids made it!

It just seems there are more things to worry about today; perhaps that's the reason I'm a little more cautious with Juliet than I was with my own child. Matthew and Jeanne tell me how to do everything for Juliet; how to feed her, change her diaper, bathe her and hold her. And I'm grateful for that; I want to do everything just right. She is so precious. This afternoon she was a little fussy, and I found that when I positioned her to be more upright, on my shoulder, she settled down. Then she fell asleep that way: her soft little cheek against my cheek, her tiny, tiny hand on my neck, the quiet little "hunh, hunh, hunh" of her breathing, and even though my arms started aching from holding her that way, I stayed as still as I could for as long as I could. My granddaughter was asleep in my arms, and I could close my eyes and imagine the day when she would call me Grandma.