Embrace Your Destiny: Enjoy Being Grandma

Safely seated with Loleh

We waited patiently on grandparenthood. A grand baby has always been my motivation to work out, to be healthy, to feel good. When the moment finally arrived, I just felt awkward, but happy. How does one be a grandma to be remembered? That’s my goal, but it could be challenging.

That moment I met Loleh was surreal. There he was, being cute baby. All the waiting, preparation, anticipation and then discovery was forgotten in that moment. He was so tiny. I couldn’t remember Liz ever being that small but she was smaller. The first time I held him I was afraid I would hurt him. Slowly I got comfortable and worked up to standing to hold him. I never got comfortable carrying him anywhere.

 

 

 My friend gave me a couple of books to prepare me for this Grandma role. My grandmother and my mother were great role models. Both were long distance “grandma”. That is me now and will be for the long term. I plan to use my time now to establish a strong bond with him. The family will move to Paris in the fall. The other grandparents live there.  The up side is that we will get to visit them in France and Loleh will get to visit the USA.

We looked forward to their visits with great anticipation. I was never disappointed. We got to do fun things we didn't ordinarily do. Grandma and I played games  by the hours. Our favorite was canasta. She was very hard of hearing, but that didn’t slow down our talking and laughing.

Lunch with Mama at Carolina Village

When I was older and visited my grandparents in Cincinnati  they allowed me to explore the neighborhood. I walked up to Madeira and over to my cousin's house. City sidewalks were a novelty for me. Our dirt road was not great for walking. Then there was Grandma's cooking and Cincinnati Reds baseball games. Family gatherings with food, beer and laughter was a given. My grandparent experiences were memorable.

My parents were also long distance grandparents . A trip from Raleigh to the mountains to see them was always special. They did a great job creating memories with Liz around picnics, farm activities and playing games. Again, there was a big contrast in environment. Perhaps that helped create the good vibes and memories.

 

The quilt with Liz and Loleh

I got started immediately on making a quilt for Loleh. It had to be interesting, colorful, durable, soft and cuddly. It had to be big enough to wrap him up, lay him out and play on. It’s called City Cats. Making the quilt helped pass the time as we waited.

I did a combination of hand quilting and machine quilting. Of course, the machine stitching is more durable, but I love doing hand quilting. I simply ran out of time to do as much hand work as I wanted.  

I will miss being physically close to Loleh. Luckily, now we  have technology to help connect. What we can't do is touch, hug or get kisses. No doubt I'll watch Loleh grow up using zoom and other media. We will figure out the rest of it along the way.

 

My goal will be to remain healthy, to get stronger and look for fun things to do when he does visit us. I know I will be reading stories to him. Loleh gets a children’s book every month compliments of the Dolly Parton literacy project. I might even write a children’s book staring Loleh. Yes, being Grandma is a happy, wonderful place to be.