Just returned from a delightful three day visit with my son and his family. Grandchildren. They are the best. So cute. So engaging. So wonderfully devoted to their grandparents and the feeling is mutual.
When we arrived they came running out of the house yelling, "Nana! Grandpa!!" Their faces were filled with delight, as were ours.
I took a walk later with my three-year-old grandson when he saw a neighbor. "Hi," he shouted. Then, "This is my Nana!" Heaven must be something like this.
We played a simple board game called Orchard. The dice rolls one of four colored circles so, no need to know numbers. Each player gets a little wicker basket in which to collect the little fruit that is the same color that you rolled. For very young children this is a fun game because there is nothing complicated about it. And all the players are working together to collect all the fruit before the raven comes to eat all of it.
I must have rolled the dice eight times in a row turning up the blue circle for plums each time. They thought it was hilarious and I was able to share their sense of humor, even exaggerating it, in a way that does not happen with adults. "Blue?? Again?!?!" They laughed hilariously as did I. Was it funny? Yes. But mine was more a laugh of delight in sharing the mindset of young children.
With grandchildren your only job is to love. I tell them how great they are, how smart they are. When I'm not speaking to them I'm loving them with my eyes.
Raising them is not my responsibility. I don't need to set boundaries except to enforce the parents' boundaries when I'm babysitting. I always support the parents and try to reinforce whatever their rules are. I don't make any rules. It's great.
It's so much fun to just love. All children bring joy into the world. But grandchildren bring a unique joy-- the joy of familial bonds, of seeing the next generation, of delighting in that child just for being who they are.
God is good.
