Being a Grandparent. There are certain things that happen in your life that you never forget. People say things and at the time they say it you can’t identify with what they said, but boy it comes back to you year after year after year. I am talking about what my mail carrier\u00a0said to me \u00a0forty-five years ago. It was an especially hot summer day and\u00a0 a very tiring day running after two rambunctious boys. \u00a0I was walking up the street to my house, a two year old in one\u00a0hand and a four year old in the other. As I walked they jumped and walked, twirled and walked and leaped and walked. Ruth was just putting mail into my mailbox and I guess saw the exasperated expression on my face. She rolled down the window and said, “Charlotte, at least you put them to bed at 7:00pm and you know where they are, just wait until you have teenagers, once they drive then your worries just begin.” I really thought what a great idea, they are grown and I don’t have to give them baths, they can drive themselves, no more trips to Nursery School, I really couldn’t identify with what Ruth said, that is until the two of them were teenagers.\u00a0Fifteen years later Ruth is still \u00a0delivering my mail and after an exhausting night of worry, as now they are driving, I saw her and reminded her of what she had said, and told her how right she was.\u00a0 She replied with “Oh, you think this stage\u00a0is difficult, wait until you are a Grandparent, now you see what they are doing and you can’t say a word.\u00a0 At least as a parent you have a certain amount of control.\u00a0 Grandparent?\u00a0 Forget it, you have to just watch and you can’t say anything.”\u00a0 Once again being a Grandparent seemed easier than being a parent of teenagers.\u00a0 However,\u00a0as in the past,\u00a0Ruth’s words come back to me.\u00a0 In one respect, \u00a0I don’t feel I have wanted to say anything as they have been\u00a0really good kids, and truthfully I probably would have spoken up if I thought necessary, but you do worry and there is not a thing you can do.\u00a0 Perhaps you wouldn’t worry as much if your own children had not shared years later all their escapades, and what they did to fool you and what they got away with when they were teenagers.\u00a0 The worry was brought home to me this past week when my oldest Grandson, who is a senior and a member of the High School Glee Club,\u00a0sang a \u00a0Frank Sinatra hit\u00a0with the Jazz Band\u00a0accompanying him, at their Winter Concert, fedora, suit and all.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 It was one of those times you wished you were living close by so that you could go, but even though you were not there, the nerves leading up to the Concert were still the same.\u00a0\u00a0My advice to him was a little different than what I would have given my own sons, as I think I am wiser now, \u00a0and that was…Life begins at the edge of your comfort zone, nothing can ever replace the feeling of accomplishment.\u00a0 \u00a0You are going to feel so good when it is over.\u00a0 At the time it probably didn’t make him feel any better,\u00a0but I’m sure my words came back afterwards. \u00a0as\u00a0he did feel good and he did love it. \u00a0 We were all nervous for\u00a0and with him, but he did just\u00a0fine, as my son said he would…but oh did I worry.\u00a0 I don’t know what I would have done if I were there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Being a Grandparent. There are certain things that happen in your life that you never forget. People say things and at the time they say it you can’t identify with what they said, but boy it comes back to you year after year after year. I am talking about what my mail carrier\u00a0said to me […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bestvillageblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bestvillageblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bestvillageblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestvillageblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestvillageblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=979"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/bestvillageblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/979\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":986,"href":"https:\/\/bestvillageblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/979\/revisions\/986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bestvillageblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestvillageblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestvillageblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}