Grandchildren: They are very special blessings in our lives

Betty Pond and her grandson Drew Dukart are pictured making cookies for Halloween. Submitted photo.

Usually very young children worship their parents and think they know everything and can do no wrong. Then as those teen years approach, the parents are fools who don’t know anything and their primary purpose in life is to embarrass their children. As the children get to be about 25 years old, all of sudden their parents are brilliant once again. I speak from experience, because I was a child once who went through those stages.

However, it seems to me the scenario is totally different with grandparents. Young children simply love their grandparents and even when they reach those ugly teen years, they don’t seem to be embarrassed by grandparents. Grandchildren may laugh at grandpa when he signs every text with LOL thinking it means “lots of love,” but they don’t think he’s stupid.

A frustrated and angry granddaughter wouldn’t roll her eyes and growl GRANDMOTHERRRRRR! If grandpa offers a grandkid a ride to town, the kid doesn’t ask to be dropped off a block away from his destination. I wondered why that is? As I pondered this, I came up with a theory. I think because we grandparents are old, kids don’t have such high expectations of us. As older people, we are expected to sing off key, wear clothes that might have been fashionable 10 or 20 years ago, smell funny, tell the same old stories over and over again, not understand twitters and tweets, slurp our coffee and drive cautiously. We are just expected to be nice, old people. Grandchildren seem to love us as we are.

When my grandson Drew was 9-years-old, he completed a writing assignment that his teacher thought should be sent to me. I’m going to be self-indulgent and share that paper just as Drew wrote it (including misspellings).

My Grandmother

My grandmother is my favorate family member. My Grandmother is very active (for an old person.) Every day my Grandmom goes for a nice stroll in the neighborhood for a good exersize to burn calories. When she comes to our house I usually am with her. My Grandma is the best cooker that I know of. Whenever she comes to my house I always want to cook with her to make brownies, cookies, pumpkin cookies, and many other delicious desserts. After we make them we let them cool. After that the family gobbles them up. “Mmmmm delicious” everyone says always. Also, whenever she comes she is always willing to play a game of pounce. Hands are flying through the air when a game of pounce is going, specially when it is 5 man way pounce. Also, my Grandma is nicer than any other Grandma in my opinion. In conclusion, my Grandma is my favorate family member in my family. Don’t even get me started on my Grandpa.

I have treasured this paper for years. Drew is now a fine young man entering his second year of college and I couldn’t be more proud of him. When I called him to get permission to use his writing, my heart sang with joy just to hear his voice. Drew lives with his family nearly a thousand miles from me, so we only see one another once or twice a year, but those times are always special. He may not still have me on the same pedestal as he did 10 years ago, but he still wants me to meet his friends and be a part of his life. And I’m still able to whip him at that fast-paced card game called Pounce!

Of course every grandparent has perfect, beautiful, and brilliant grandchildren and we love them as they are. When they come to visit we are lenient with them, give them sugary treats and let them stay up past bedtime.

My Aunt Katherine, who is quite a fussy housekeeper, won’t clean the bottom of her sliding glass door. Her great-granddaughter’s fingerprints are too precious to be wiped away! That truly is love.

If you have a grandchild, grab him and hug him extra tight and thank God for the blessing of that very special child in your life.

Betty Pond lives in Mt. Iron, MN. She is a frequent contributor to Hometown Focus. (Betty’s Grandparents Day article was published last week with an incorrect headline and is being republished in this edition with the correct headline. We apologize for the error. – Cindy Kujala, HTF Managing Content Editor)