Why I Love Being a Grandma (#GrandmaProject)

Nine months of pure joy!

I know there are people who are traumatized about becoming a grandma. I am not one of those people. I LOVE being a mom and I LOVE being a grandma. I try not to be one of those people who pull out pictures of their grand babies for perfect strangers. But I don’t try very hard. LOL

When I found out I was going to be a grandma of TWINS (oh yes, there was rejoicing), I realized that, while I had been a grand daughter, I had not been a grandmother before. I knew what I loved about my city grandmother and my country grandmother.

My city grandmother: She had this quirky old house with strange nooks and crannies and a seriously spooky basement with a “secret” room in the back. She smelled like powder, gave us Nilla Wafers and we could call her at four on Christmas morning and she would be “awake” and come over so we could open presents. She taught me how to embroider and told me stories about the grandfather I never knew.

My country grandmother: She lived in a log cabin. I would not kid about this. There was a ditch out front that we all “fell” in on a regular basis. There were trees to climb and she always had a bag of ginger snaps under her sink. It had to be a big bag, because she had a LOT of grand kids. She also gave great hugs, but smelled of bread and cooking. I rarely saw her outside her kitchen. She taught me to love bread and that life could be hard, but happy.

They both had gray hair, though not the same kind of gray. My city grandma’s hair was more white, while country grandma’s was a kind of soft gray, like a dove. When I went to their houses, I knew that I was welcome and loved.

I don’t have a quirky house or live in a log cabin. There is no creek out front (though right now our front yard is verging on becoming a swamp because of sprinkler system issue). I am starting to gray, but I don’t have a grandma name (though if I keep singing “John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt…). So back, before the babies were born, I started the Grandma Project. I needed advice from experienced grandmas and I got it. I got lovely advice and reassurance. (My thanks to everyone who has offered some!)

So, I thought I’d return and report. The twins (boy/girl) are 9 months old and perfect in every way. While my grandma house is still not quirky, I now have toys, books, two booster seats and a contained place for them to sleep. We still need to child proof (mostly the hubs who has his rock collection in a very vulnerable position).

I knew that I’d love them, even before they were born. What I didn’t know was how much I’d love them. How seeing them makes the sun shine brighter and my problems shrink to almost nothing. Now I know why my two grandmas’ faces would light up when we burst through their doors. Now I know why their arms were outstretched—even when it hurt their aging, arthritic shoulders.

I look at them now and I can’t imagine a time when I didn’t know them. It seems so weird to look back, to when we wondered what they’d look like, who’d they’d be. I’m grateful I got to meet them, that I get to spend time with them. And it is my hope that I will be the kind of grandma that mine were to me.

Have you had a project come to fruition this year? Was it as fun as mine? Cuz mine was awesome. You have to know by now that comments are entered into my monthly drawing for an AnaBanana gift basket (with $50 this month in honor of NaBloPoMo). Winner will be announced the first week in December.

Perilously yours,

When Pauline isn’t grinning idiotically about being a grandma, she writes books. So far she’s written 13 books of adventure, romance and mayhem. Some of them have even won awards. While she types away on #14, you can find out about her and her finished books on her website or by checking out the navigation bar of this blog.

What happens when a twenty-first century woman on a mission to change the past meets a thoroughly 1940s man trying to stay alive in the hellish skies over war-torn Europe?

Buy this book on Amazon in digital and audio.

Also available in used print editions. Prime members can borrow for free. 🙂

(I loved my city grandma’s house so much, I used it as Mel’s house in this book.)