March 7, 1990
It has been sometime since I’ve written this column so I guess I should bring our longtime readers up to date. We are now proud grandparents.
Our daughter and son-in-law have given us a grandson and now a granddaughter to spoil and pamper. I have waited for this day a long time but now that it has come I’m feeling a little cheated.
My opportunities to spoil are few and far between. Unlike the days when I raised my children just minutes from their grandmother’s door, my grandchildren are a ten hour car ride away.
I am unable to babysit and keep them up to all hours so they will be hyperactive when their parents return. Nor will I have the chance to take them shopping and buy all the things their mother said they couldn’t have or fill them with candy and spoil and their dinner.
I have even been denied hearing my daughter call to tell me the problems of childrearing. Unlike their mother when she was young, my grandchildren seem to sleep through the night, find little reason to cry and in general give their parents little reason for distress.
Their mother had colic for three months and screamed until I almost lost my mind. I always said she would be paid back for this some day when she had children of her own. When the first baby came and proceeded to sleep all night, eat all his vegetables and take to strangers I said just you wait until the next one. You’ll get yours.
Now the second has arrived. She is sleeping through the night at three weeks, rarely cries and seems to have no desire to disrupt her parients’ lives. I feel my daughter has missed out on a whole aspect of parenthood.
I know I should be happy that motherhood has turned out to be so great for my duahgter. But somehow I can’t resit wishing she had at least a small taste of what she gave me. There is one small consolation. These beautiful babies will not remain small forever; there will be the day when they become teenagers.
GCB