Guess What I Got For My Birthday

Months in the making and hours in the delivery, my birthday gift came with all the drama and excitement one would expect from a miracle. 

The stork dropped Miss Emilia in my arms on my birthday. Wrapped in a swaddling blanket and baby bonnet, I quickly unwrapped my gift to be sure that all parts were assembled. I had to stand in a long line of expectant siblings, grand parents, great grandparents, aunts and uncles to pass the bundle of wiggly parts around the room. First glimpses, smiles and flashing cameras all gave rave reviews to a tired mother and beaming father.

I hugged my daughter, who told me this was all she had time to get me for my birthday. Interestingly enough, I felt that my daughter was the real gift. One way or the other, we all knew a baby was coming. But my daughter was the most beautiful face in that room. I was so anxious to see her, to hold her, to make sure she was all right. The hours of waiting wore deeply in both our faces and the joyous crowd made it difficult to be heard. I hope she knows that she will always be my baby, no matter how many babies she puts into my arms. 

In our heart, in our arms, in our lives, in our thoughts, from the cradle to the crib, to school, down the aisle, to the delivery room and beyond, our children are engraved, sculpted from our very beings. And like any work of art, are priceless and enduring. Today, I celebrate my mother, and her mother, myself and my daughter as we again lay claim to the title "mother and child".

That's what a wise grandma would do.

Live and In Person

Welcome to wisegrandma.com. Good to be live and look forward to blogging my way through what is now "officially" a recession. I don't think this is news to most of us and for the rest of you, don't worry. Many of my readers lived through the Great Depression and suffered far more than we are now. The main thing to remember is that you can always find someone in a worse situation than you.

So here is my tip for the day. Roll those pennies. Yes, I said pennies. Every year since we were married, my husband and I saved our pennies in a mason jar we left on the kitchen counter. Come Christmas time, we sat down and rolled all the pennies in the jar. I think our kids loved doing this because we would dump all the pennies out onto the table and the pile was quite impressive. They would sift their hands through the pennies, like King Midas himself. After painstakingly counting the pennies into neat little piles of ten, we would place them in wrappers and stack them in pyramids on the table before us. The number of rolls determined the size of the tree we would purchase.

At the time, $10 would buy a pretty good size tree, often having to be trimmed to get through the front door. Now we are lucky if we can rub together $20 in pennies for an average size tree, but none-the-less, it has become a tradition of family fun. It inspires saving and earning, not to mention the sigh of beauty when you see the tree sparkling with ornaments and lights, knowing you grew that tree one penny at a time.

My kids no longer chide me about picking up a penny on the street because they know that's what a wise grandma would do.

Introducing - Wise Grandma

I have been called many names, some nicer than others, but I think my favorite is Grandma.

By way of credentials, I must confess that I did not come by the title of Grandma honestly. I am an instant grandmother. My daughter married a wonderful man with twin boys. These two impish bookends were an unexpected bonus in my life. Although I did not have to go through the hovering, worry, aches and pains and endless waiting that most mothers do with their pregnant daughters, I can’t say that being an instant grandmother was all that easy either.

I jumped right in with both arms. I am convinced now that God gave us two arms just in case we had twins. Mothers and grandmothers with multiple blessings beyond that must be grateful for their feet and toes. There were very few tricks these two could run past me, that I had not invented or had the playbook memorized.

I joyously accepted grandparenthood in overnight fashion. I quickly realized though, that this new role was more than baby-sitting or simply the offering of advice. It is more of a hands on job. Always ready for new challenges, I set the rocking chair aside and set about to find fun ways of engaging these techno savvy children. This grandma has a new bag of tricks.

Lucky for me, I am a quick study. My granddaughter is now the book between the bookends. After spending most of my adult life as a work-at-home mom, I intend to fully relish the new and younger lifestyle of the work-at-home grandma. Young enough to still remember the fun of being a child, yet wise enough to know the limits, and creative enough to mix the two, let’s discover the true fountain of youth, grand-parenting. That’s what a wise grandma would do.