It is hard to believe that School is about ready to start again. It seems like the summer goes by as fast for me as for the twins. They will be in 2nd grade this year. Growing up with them is my favorite thing in the world.
The other day one of my granddaughters said to me – “Grandma, you know what I want to be more than anything when I grow up?”
I responded “No baby, what do you want to be?”
She said: “I want to be what you are. I want to be just like you Grandma”.
Now of course, she isn’t old enough yet to have acquired all the measuring sticks in life that she will eventually re-think and measure me up to,…*lol* but for a fleeting moment in the span of a life, she thinks I’m the best thing since sliced bread!
Do you think it ’s my lavish home, or that she is given the best things money can buy that endear me to her? I doubt it, there’s no extravagant home, no well of money to give her everything her heart desires. But I absolutely SPOIL her by beyond measure with something she considers more precious than gold – I give her my “time”.
When she ‘picks me’ to share her fondest dreams with and tells me about flying high in the sky on her pet dragon named ‘Magic’,… I never tell her it’s a foolish thought. Instead my eyes grow wide with anticipation as she details her adventure and I prod her for more!
When she privileges me by confiding her aspirations to one day be a famous singer like Hannah Montana, or a princess that gets to wear all the beautiful princess clothes, or the President of the United States because she would right all the wrongs and wouldn’t let kids get hurt. I don’t tell her they are unrealistic and silly thoughts, instead I affirm for her that she can absolutely be, or do, ANYTHING she is motivated and passionate about. That nothing is out of her grasp if she wants it bad enough.
When she was upset and heartbroken about her hamster, twinkle-eyes, dying because he got sick, I didn’t put a time limit on how long she could reiterate how much she loved him. Or how many tears were ‘enough’. I was not in a hurry for her to move on so “I” could do something else.
I know that when she tells me that she wants to be “just like me” she isn’t talking about a career, or an income, or a standard of living,….what she is saying is that she wants to be like I am with her. A person that has “Time” to care.
To think that doing something as simple as ’spending time’ with a child makes you the ‘Cat’s Meow’ in their eyes,…is a sobering thought. Her words ‘ “I want to be what you are. I want to be just like you Grandma” made me cry in humbleness. Such a small gift receiving such a HUGE reward.
You want to know how to be the WORLD’S GREATEST GRANDPARENT?
It’’s easy – Give the gift of TIME to your grandchildren.
