on being grandparents

this weekend we were so lucky to have been trusted by our lovely son and daughter in law to take care of their very new, very beautiful little girl, our first ever grandchild.

She arrived to stay and with her came an vast array of equipment, clothes, nappies and the like.  The Moses basket, the pram, the wet wipes and the toys, a tiny bundle of gorgeousness amidst a mountain of stuff.  She is a smiling girl.  Mum and Dad, reluctant to leave her eventually went off to have a bit of fun and celebrate a special occasion

I simply cannot believe my luck.  After years of stress, long nights waiting for toddlers to sleep and later teens to come home, I had begun to forget the fierce love a baby can evoke.  It is true that the years fly past, one day you are waiting at the school gate, the next they are all grown up, married and parents themselves.

Looking a the darling girl, asleep in her cot, I did this a lot, at one point hubby woke up and asked why I was staring at a sleeping baby in the middle of the night ‘just watching her being her’ was the best answer I could give.  In truth I was scared to close my eyes in case she needed me.  I do not remember this feeling with my own babies.

I remembered the feeling of hope and love and pride and fear and excitement and joyfulness that each new baby brought with them.  I also remembered writing a poem for my daughter, then aged 3 and it seems apt to revisit it, the words still hold true and now we have the next generation to include.

For My Daughter

She looks around her and knows

That she is in command

For now at least her world is clear

and she knows not of difficulties to come

I hope her path will be forever smooth

and that

she will be brave and true

a child of the 20th century

and a woman of the 21st

What ways will she find, and who will

she become

Will she ever think, as I do now

of the women from our mutual past and

how they made us both

who we are to be