"If your baby's beautiful and perfect, never cries or fusses, sleeps on
schedule, burps on demand, and is an angel all the time -- then you
must be the grandma"
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DIAPER SPELLED BACKWARDS
by Darlene A. Buechel
Last August I was feeling somewhat bummed by the thought of turning 49. After all, with the big 5-0 breathing down my neck like a demented dragon, I was starting to feel tired, achy, and old. Then I opened a gift from our daughter, Dani, and her husband Mark -- an empty silver picture frame with "Our First Grandchild" engraved on the bottom! I gasped and grinned until Dani finally said, "Read it out loud." Then my husband gasped and grinned too. "Congratulations," I said. "Did you tell Mark's parents yet?" Mark said they just came from there (his parents live about a mile from our house) and he gave his Mom a similar picture frame engraved "Happy 26th Grandchild."
Can you imagine? Of course, Mark is the youngest of nine kids, but that still seems like a huge pile of grandkids to dote over. We can't wait for March to spoil the sweet new addition. I was surprised to learn Dani had found out she was pregnant many weeks before the announcement. It seems you can pee on a stick these days and find out you're pregnant even before a missed period! She said, "We thought we'd better tell before you guessed 'cause of my bump and all." Truth be told, I hadn't noticed a baby bump yet, but I was glad she shared the good news. "Soon we'll be buying diapers, onesies, and all that fun stuff," Dani said with a huge grin. "Yes, and did you know diaper spelled backwards is repaid?" I added helpfully. "That should give you plenty to think about." Actually, Dani doesn't need to be repaid for bad baby behavior. Since both of my kids were over nine pounds at birth, they ate good, slept good, and did a good job filling diapers. Of course, 24 and 22 years later, I'm probably forgetting a few hundred crying jags and tantrums (some of them generated by the babies), but I enjoyed pregnancy and the babyhood of my kids. It seems to me it was the tween and teen years that added growls, gray hair, and sleepless nights
to my repertoire. An old Yiddish proverb said it best --"Small children disturb your sleep, big children your life." Still, every "big child" starts out a cute, cuddly cutie-pie. The more I get used to this whole Grandma idea, the more I like it. Yes, I'm still working full-time, but I think I'll have more time and patience for a Grandkid than I did when my two were little. As a young mom, I was torn in 99 different directions after work, while my husband did his farm chores and strolled into the house when it was almost bed time for the rug rats. This time around I'll get to watch the little tyke when I want to, and I'll appreciate every hour we spend together. Did I mention March can't come soon enough? I can't wait to meet and greet the new little tyke that's already in my heart. I'm sure he or she will be the best baby in the world.
As the late writer and humorist Teresa Bloomingdale said, "If your baby's beautiful and perfect, never cries or fusses, sleeps on schedule, burps on demand, and is an angel all the time -- then you must be the grandma."
