Happiness is being a grandparent

When my wife and I became a parent in our mid-twenties, nothing prepared us for the significant reality shifts post childbirth. Before children (BC) when on a whim, we decided to take a, two-day weekend road trip to taste wine and culinary delights to break the boredom of the everyday. We as a couple embodied the phrase we work for the weekends.

Weekends were our time to be free of all responsibilities, and speak and live the immortal words of the over worked, under paid employees of that prison of work, TGIF, thank God it’s Friday. The Friday evening ritual of casting off every vestige of the ordinary included our standard Friday night visit to a local eatery we were free to go so we went. I remember these days in a time long, long ago, but with hazy clarity.

Then it happen children, we became parents, what a joy to be sure, but the joy soon brought the reality of the responsibility of now being a couple after children (AC). The everyday and even the weekends were no longer ours to be free, but now the child is our concern, awake or asleep if you can sleep.

The weekend trips are a thing of the past for at least the foreseeable future. Even if we had the energy to enjoy a weekend trip, the logistics of such an endeavor means bring virtually the entire child’s bedroom and cloths with us leaving no room for the suitcases. So now, we are guardians of our dear son, and we began to understand what our parents experienced. Even in all this we that is my wife and I loved every minute of this new life (AC).

Parents at all stages of their training say two phrases that seem to be common among all parents of the baby, toddler, and the teenager. The first phrase uttered in the everyday frustration of your children helping you grow up, and in that training you say, will this ever end.

It is true that every parent loves their children because those very children not only grew up, but they helped their parents grow up. Therefore, it is with sadness that our children one by one leave the nest and then we utter the next phase, how this time slipped away so fast.

Why I love, begin a grandparent because grandparents can again do anything they want. Take a weekend trip just because they are free to go, and not chained to the everyday of raising children. Grandparents have the best of both world’s they can have the grand children over for the day or even sleep over. Grandparents know the grand children have live in wardens who concern and frustrate enough.

In closing, my wife and I loved raising our children. Now our children are men and women who have become our friends.

Our grand children remind us of the times of wonder and the discovery of small children. Which as parents we experienced these times, but we did not have the time to appreciate them. These are the times that make grandparents smile, and laugh and enjoy the wonder of the everyday, because grandparents are not overwhelmed with the concerns and frustrations of the everyday.

The message to parents in all stages of instruction is to smell and gaze the beautiful flowers of your children’s wonder and discovery. Even though it seems this time will never end, it will and when it is gone, it is gone. Even pictures do not reclaim the past; only memories of your children’s moments of wonder and discovery enrich your existence and make you ready to be a grandparent.

Doug Bryant

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