When I was in the country of Nepal in 2000,..I became fascinated with the culture and their mindset about many things in life. While talking to a doctor one day discussing cancers and such, he made the comment that in his opinion, one of the leading causes of cancer among Americans was their “Stress Level”. The inability of the American culture to embrace “quiet time”. To set aside an hour or more a day to process life.

Our culture has turned into such a continual frenzy of one activity to the next,…we don’t like waiting for anything. The problem is – there are somethings in life that “take time”…and our instant gratification philosophy constantly clashes with them.

When I sit and think upon the Nepalese culture and compare it to ours, I see clearly that we have deprived ourselves of a couple things in societal our race for new and improved, that cannot be improved upon.

1) Extended family interaction – for both support in raising children and our own mental health

2) Downtime – Setting aside time when we turn off the cell phone, step away from the business of life and just process the information, the situations, and the “life” we are living. Taking time to ponder relationships, re-evaluating decisions and choices made, allowing things to sink-in,..and letting go of other things.

We have deprived ourselves of the two things that produce BALANCE in life, the thing we need most to sustain our physical, mental, and soulful well-being.

Due to the social breakdown of the home, of relationships, of many of the things that used to define the ‘norm’, it is a difficult task at best to accomplish the first thing. But it is totally within our ability to accomplish the second.

It seems that we have no time for anything, but yet, when we need to make time,..we always find it.

I highly encourage you, especially those of us that are Grand-PARENTS, to make sure that we take the time to maintain OURSELVES by setting aside ALONE time. It may not be easy,…but it is necessary,..to keep your sanity.

Hang in there,..and take advantages of places like this, where you can write your thoughts out, it is liberating!

Kath

It never ceases to amaze me the way the mind of a child works.

This week end as the girls and I drove to the store to pick up some ‘egg-coloring’ kits so we could spend the afternoon going through a dry-run of decorating Easter eggs,..we drove over a bridge where below us were train cars filled with coal. “I asked for some of that for Christmas, and didnt get any” Abigail said.

“What?” I asked

“I asked for some of that, you know, coal….for Christmas and all I got was presents” She repeated in a disappointed tone. Then she added “Grandma, the story says that bad boys and girls get coal, and good ones get presents, so does that mean if you are good and you ASK for coal, you can’t get it?”

I smiled and told her “Well if you are good, you would think that you could get whatever you asked for, right? So I am not sure why that didnt work”. And we left it at that.

We went to the store knocked ourselves out getting sparkles and decals and grass and baskets and any other little thing we could use to decorate an egg.

On the way back home out of the blue Abigail said to me, “Grandma,…do you think it would be okay to be bad intentionally this year,… so that I could get coal for Christmas?”

I just love the way a child’s mind works,…and I assured her that I would get her some coal if she was GOOD.

Sometimes it seems so surreal to stop and seriously look at my life,  to acknowledge that “I” am a grandmother…an honest to goodness, in the flesh, grandmother of “4″ now.  Perhaps it has something to do with having raised the twins for 6 years,..and because I still play  a very big part in their day-to-day lives even though they live with their mom now, my ‘grandmotherly experience’,..just didn’t have a ‘grandmotherly’ feel to it yet.

I thought that when my son and his wife had their baby “that” would be when it would happen, when I would start to feel like a “real grandmother”. But no,..three years into that experience, I still feel no different. And now there is yet another precious grandchild to add to my list of treasures and I STILL just cant seem to experience this “feeling”  I have been expecting to show up with the grandparenting experience.

So I decided it was time to try and figure out WHAT exactly it was I was waiting for!

Was it that I was waiting to feel “Old”?  Because I don’t. I don’t feel like a grandmother.

Was it that I was waiting to feel “Liberated”? Because I don’t. I can’t let go of the responsibility and the privilege I feel to be vigilant, to ‘oversee’, to ‘keep a watchful eye’, on my family tucked safely under my wings.

Was it that I was waiting to feel “Stability”? Because I don’t. I was thinking when I got to this point I would have a life that represented some kind of ’security’, that there would be certain things like finances and such, that would be a ‘done deal’,..all in place. No such luck….here I am, experiencing the same fears and apprehension everyone else does, regardless of age, that is trying to ‘make it’ in this world.

Talking to myself I finally realized -  what I am waiting for will never show up. It can’t exist in this present era. Things have evolved, times have changed, I am not my grandparents and I will never experience grandparenting in the same way that they did. What I was waiting for, thinking would ’show up’,…won’t.  The feeling was misplaced, it was a lingering thought from another dimension of time that is long past.

Myself, and 43 million plus boomer grandparents are pioneering a whole new standard for grandparenting that is as unique as the grandparent themselves. There are no absolutes, nothing is written in stone. We have the freedom to not be shackled to old perceptions and stereotypes.

There is a new feeling now that has replaced “the feeling” I was waiting for, it’s the feeling TO BE FREE to be the grandparent I am.  *Deep breath* And it feels good.

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.

I always get the biggest kick when I read comments, articles and books that seem to “blame Boomers” for being the largest and most influential generation to ever exist. As though somehow we played a personal role in devising, plotting, and then executing,…a plan to be born in mass so that one day we could rule the world.

Sorry folks, but our 76 million strong generation is truly nothing more than “cause” (WWII vet’s coming home from a long war!) and “effect” (Do I really need to explain this?)

Truth is, Boomers have broken every mold and ignored every norm because what was in place was antiquated in light of 76 million people showing up for the ball.

And here we are again,.. 40 million Boomers showing up at the threshold of “Grandparenting” at the same time. And yes, we are going to give grandparenting a face-lift,…the traditional role of grandparents is outdated, so much has changed!
“Extended life-spans”, “Better disease control, health care and over all physical condition”, and “Different financial structures”,…means the grandparent of today is a new breed of animal compared to the grandparent of the past.

* At an age that use to signify the ‘end’ of life, Boomers are just blooming! Forty-eight is considered about middle age and seventy-five and older is considered ‘finally growing up’.

* The high divorce rate among boomers added a twist to things, many have grandchildren, while at the same time have their own young children!

* Thanks to the shift from the “Industrial Age” to the “Information Age”,..Success is now “Ageless”. Earning power exists at ANY age. That means more disposable income to spend on our grandchildren.

* We are younger Mentally and Physically than our grandparents, and younger, healthier grandparents mean playing more of an active role in the lives of our grandchildren.

We are NOT the grandparents of the past and it would be fool-hearty to imagine that we COULD be.

Whereas the responsibility of grandchildren use to lie squarely on ‘parents shoulders’, in todays world we are willing to step up to the plate and realize the difference that we can make being involved in our grandchildrens lives.

AND WE LOVE IT.

I am wishing a SAFE and JOY-FILLED 4th Of July for each and everyone of you!

I also want to encourage everyone of you to the take time to re-read the Declaration of Independence and consider the progress of this “noble experiment” (Benjamin Franklin) called the United States of America.

In a society where the introduction of new technology is forever keeping us ‘connected’ to something or someone every waking moment of the day, and it continues to process even while we sleep,…it can be challenging to find a “free moment” at any point of the day to do anything that is not on a list of ‘necessity’! But ‘how easily we forget’ in the busyness of our lives, what it is that we really have. I HIGHLY encourage you to ‘find’ the time – to re-visit the events and acknowledge the sacrifices that have afforded us the FREEDOM we indulge ourselves in daily. Then pass that knowledge on to your grandchildren so they have an ACCURATE picture of our Country and what it took to have what they enjoy today.

My Son, Benjamin, is in the Military and will be getting deployed at the end of the year. The commitment the men and women in the Military make to maintain our freedom and our liberties is sealed with the willingness to perform the ‘ultimate sacrifice’. To ‘give all’ is something they believe whole-heartedly in.

Supporting our Troops isn’t the same as agreeing with the policies or the decisions if our government,..it is simply a show of gratitude for those willing to lay their lives on the line when called upon to do so. They don’t flinch, they don’t whine, they don’t take the time to “weigh out’ whether or not YOU, I, or anyone else is worth dying for. They simply uphold an oath to protect and serve their Country, and ALL AMERICANS fall under that oath.

June 24th of last year our city welcomed home from the longest overseas tour to date for any Nebraska Guard unit. Members of the 1-167th Cavalry and 134th Infantry Detachment (Long Range Surveillance). We left home early and planted ourselves on the Bus route. Thousands of others joined us, and it brought tears to my eyes to see the SUPPORT.

Hannah and Abby made signs that said WELCOME HOME and THANK YOU. We had our American Flags in our hands,..waiting for the flashing lights of the police escort to appear in the distance. The crowd erupted into cheers and applause as the buses made their way through the city. A procession of more than 400 motorcycles, the Patriot Guard Riders, stretching for dozens of blocks escorted the buses. The soldiers were greeted by rows of U.S. flags and yellow ribbons and thousands of people cheering them home!

It was beyond “MOVING”,…it was INSPIRING! My heart welled with my love for this country I live in and the Freedoms I enjoy,…I never want to forget THE COST for that freedom. To me,…that is what the 4th of July is all about.

It is up to us Grandparents to make sure that our Grandchildren UNDERSTAND the sacrifices made for the FREEDOM they enjoy. To not allow them to be ignorant or apathetic about what it takes to maintain that FREEDOM.

My prayer today is: GOD PROTECT THOSE THAT MAKE A WILLING SACRIFICE TO PROTECT FREEDOM.

It just never ceases to amaze me – the ‘mind of a child’.

The twins and I just got back from the lake. It was a beautiful day!
We talk about all sorts of things when we are together…and today, Hannah asked me:“Grandma, when we get home can we look on the Internet for information on ‘Lama’s’?”
Of course I said: ‘Sure!’.

Then Abby asked me something,..and I told them “You can find virtually ANYTHING on the Internet!”

Hannah QUICKLY blurted out: “Not when you are going to die,..you can’t find out when you are going to die on the Internet Grandma”.

*lol*

Children’s minds are so “Uncluttered”,…they see the ‘obvious’ very quickly and always call it the way they see it. They can’t help it, they don’t know enough to be ‘vague’ or ‘diplomatic’.

I find their profoundly simple statements absolutely ‘fascinating’,…I wish I could be as uncomplicated as they are!

At times I stop and think about the sharp contrast between my grandmothers role in my life and my role in my own grandchildrens lives.

My grandmothers were more like priceless relics sitting on a shelf. You loved them,…knew they were ‘there’,..but their part in my life started and ended with the length of our visits. There was no day-to-day interaction, and no feeling that I was ‘missing’ something because of it.

Raising kids was left solely to mother and father, in fact, there was a distinct line in the sand of “in-put” – god-forbid if that line was crossed. Back then a grandparent choosing to interject their opinion without being asked for it, was a ‘relationship’ decision that could set off a round of family-feuds it would take generations to resolve.

It always seemed that my grandmothers ‘had it all together’. As though they had plotted a course in life and HERE (wherever here was) is precisely where they intended to be. There was an obvious absence of ‘hustle-n-bustle’ and constant movement around their household, short of making mad dashes to the freezer for more cookies. There were no ’self-improvement’ or ‘How to have it ALL’ books laying on the coffee table, (Or anywhere else in the house),..that spot was reserved for only one book, a well worn Bible.

My grandmothers never appeared to be searching for anything, much less themselves. They seemed to have found all the answers in life,…to all the questions they cared to ask. They were at peace, and never seemed bothered or unsettled about any lingering unknowns.

There came a time when they appeared to have declared themselves “Done”. All that was left now – was to sit back and enjoy the end of the ride surrounded by doting children, over-rambunctious grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Every day was a ‘notch’ on the belt of life. The daily accomplishment was ‘existing’. When they passed away,..it was sad,…but it was what they were ‘living for’….and anticipating, like the final chapter of a well written book. They were expectant of death and when it knocked, they were there waiting at the door, bag’s packed and ready to go.

Their lives seemed so ‘neat’ and ‘tidy’,…’uncomplicated’ and ’sure’.
When I think of a word to describe them,..the words “COMPLETE” and “CONTENT” come to mind.

Their grandparenting experience could not be more opposite of my own...yet,..despite the difference between the ‘interaction level’ with our grandchildren, we both accomplished the same thing. We played an intricate part in who our grandchildren are.

My grandmothers ever constant living example of FAITH IN GOD changed me forever. As I grew up and started to question everything and everyone,…and saw most ‘religious’ people as ‘hypocrites’ detouring my own spirituality, I could never ‘deny’ the existence of God because of my grandmothers unwavering and ever vigilant belief in Him. She didn’t talk about him like he was ‘up there’ and she was ‘down here’,…she talked about him like a woman having a ‘love affair’ with the perfect man. The twinkle in her eyes as she talked about how he loved her, looked out for her, and cared about her…fascinated me. I don’t believe in God because of a book, but because of my grandmothers impregnable and compelling personal relationship with him.

What I realize in retrospect,..comparing our two grandparenting experiences is this -
IT DOESN’T TAKE MUCH TIME TO MAKE A LIFE CHANGING DIFFERENCE IN A CHILD’S LIFE.

Just frequent visits on the week ends, the holidays and a card on Birthdays,…and I was forever touched by them.

Grandparents Make A HUGE Difference and I believe God is counting on it!

Happy Fathers Day to all you men out there that have ’stepped up to the plate’ to be “Dad’s” to the children in your life. Like they say – ANYONE can be a father,…but it takes a very committed and special person to be a “DAD”!

The History of Fathers Day –
Sonora Dodd, of Washington, first had the idea of a “father’s day.” She thought of the idea for Father’s Day while listening to a Mother’s Day sermon in 1909.

President Calvin Coolidge, in 1924, supported the idea of a national Father’s Day. Then in 1966 President Lyndon Johnson signed a presidential proclamation declaring the 3rd Sunday of June as Father’s Day. President Richard Nixon signed the law which finally made it permanent in 1972.

I CELEBRATE ALL “DAD’S” TODAY – and I have a special place in my heart for the Grandfathers that have stepped into the role again of full-time father to their grandchildren….THANK YOU! THANK-YOU! THANK-YOU!

******************************************

Here’s Some great “Fathers Day Quotes” :

“It is a wise father that knows his own child.” — William Shakespeare

My father used to play with my brother and me in the yard. Mother would come out and say, “You’re tearing up the grass.” “We’re not raising grass,” Dad would reply. “We’re raising boys.” ~Harmon Killebrew

It is not flesh and blood but the heart which makes us fathers and sons. ~Johann Schiller

A father carries pictures where his money used to be. ~Author Unknown

The greatest gift I ever had
Came from God; I call him Dad
~Author Unknown

Dad, your guiding hand on my shoulder will remain with me forever. ~Author Unknown

Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away. Thanks Dad ~Dinah Craik

He didn’t tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it. ~Clarence Budington Kelland

One thing I ‘like to do’ is challenge myself to be consciously aware of what is going through my granddaughters heads when I’m speaking to them. To realize and acknowledge that I am dealing with little people who have a ‘very limited’ view of life and ‘very few experiences’ to filter the information they see and hear. I make a point of understanding that what I THINK I am saying may not be with they hear, and to catch it if that is the case. It takes patience and it takes time, to do it.

Being a Mom to my grandchildren is a totally different experience than being the mom I was to my own kids. I have the rare opportunity of HINDSIGHT to refer to. I have the consequences and results of my first attempt at ‘parenting’ to learn from. That is POWERFUL when you think about it! And once I grasped onto just what an opportunity that was,…I made it my mission to right the wrongs I knew of,…and to implement the things I wish I had first time. But that is another post to come! *lol*

Anyway,

One of the girls favorite things to do is to go to the lake swimming. We went out there the other day and after about an hour of swimming a fast developing storm moved in, so we left. The saying in Nebraska is: “If you dont like the weather, wait 20 minutes”. By the time we got into town torrential rains were flooding the streets. My husband made the comment: “If it keeps raining like this the whole town will be flooded”.

Now “I” knew that he was talking about the streets being flooded, but I glanced back and saw the twins faces and they had PANIC written all over them. I asked what they were thinking,…and they told me how they saw the pictures of New Orleans in their weekly-readers after Katrina, and how the people were on the roof of their houses and some died because of the flooding!

THAT IS WHAT “FLOODING” MEANT TO THEM.

I explained the kind of ‘flooding’ that Grandpa was referring to, which created a totally different picture in their minds of “flooding”. Now they have a couple different definitions to work with when they hear the word.

I thought about how many times as a first time mom I was “too quick to answer”,…I “assumed too much”,…and how much of the time I “was oblivious” to the thought of “What are my kids thinking?” Parenting the first time was much more “Fast-paced” for me, I guess because I worried about EVERYTHING. But as a grandparent I know that it is pointless to worry about everything and can focus on what I know is important.

What I am talking about is a gift that only a grandparent can give a child because it isn’t JUST time, it is experience,…that gives you the confidence to let go of things that are unimportant.

Giving your grandchildren the gift of your TIME and UNDERSTANDING influences their perspective of the world, which in turn, changes their lives forever.

]]>