The importance of being part of your grandchildrens' lives
Grandchildren are such a blessing, to me, they're like bonus children because they're the children of my children.
I began my family at the age of 19. I was young and inexperienced but did the best I could. I stayed at home as long as I could before getting a full time job. That's when things got hard. Juggling work and a family of little ones was challenging and though I did my best to give them quality time, it seemed there were never enough hours in the day. I would have loved to have had time to sit and play games with them for hours, laugh at silly cartoons, or do other things they enjoyed, but it seemed we were always running. In the blink of an eye, they were grown and gone. Time had escaped and there was no calling it back.
But now I have the gift of 9 grandchildren and 2 great grandchildren! I don't get to see any of them at the same time, but whenever possible, I relish spending time with the ones who're available.
Last week, I got to see my youngest granddaughter. It's always such a pleasure to spend time with her. She's home schooled so it's fairly easy to pop into her day on short notice. Her mommy, my middle daughter, graciously allows us to interrupt on occasion and I'm grateful for that.Whenever we do go to visit, I do my best to incorporate some type of fun activity into our visit. My granddaughter is extremely smart and enjoys learning but I try to sneak lessons in under the radar.
I love writing and want to foster that love into the lives of my grandchildren. I also want to help them discover the power of creativity, so on our visit, I decided to use something my granddaughter said to formulate a quick lesson.
We were sitting on the sofa as she held a little stuffed dog. I asked the name of her animal -she names all of her stuffies. She told me this one's name was Penny. Penny was a little Pug dog. As she said holding the dog, I reached over and picked up a little toy crown lying on the table nearby and placed it on the dog's head. "Now her name is Princess Penny the Pug," I said. That's when the idea came...we needed to write a short story together.
I began the first line of the story, "Princess Penny the Pug lived in......" and then I pointed to my granddaughter. When she didn't answer quickly, I said, "Think of a place that starts with the letter P." That prompt caused her to immediately say, "Pennsylvania." So I began the story again, "Princess Penny the Pug lived in Pennsylvania and she loved to ...." By then, my granddaughter was getting the hang of it as we continued using P words. We formulated an entire story and as we worked together throwing the story back and forth for input, we laughed and giggled. I was happy. She was seeing that learning could be silly and fun.We wrote the story down as we went and after completing it underlined all the P words in red. Then, my daughter took the story and read it aloud for us in her best British accent. (She was always interested in drama and studied it for years. We always thought she'd major in drama when she was in college but decided to take another path.) It was so fun to have all of us participating and hopefully, the memory of that day will be forever etched into my granddaughter's mind. Perhaps, one day, when she's a mother, she'll carry on this activity with her children or maybe with her own grandchildren.)
I remember spending time with my grandparents when I was younger. Those were special times and I have treasured memories of them stored in my heart. Hopefully, my grandchildren will feel the same about me one day. As long as I'm able, I'll take time to use every opportunity to help get their creative juices flowing, foster fun, and relish our time together.
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