You had me at "Goo."
When Kid A was just six weeks old, my grandparents drove down from Alberta to California to meet him. I think they were visiting friends as well, but I'm pretty sure a yummy six-week-old baby was a big draw.
I was floundering, a little. I was doing okay. Just okay. I had hemorrhaged after Kid A was born, so I was very anemic and weak, tired and overwhelmed. I thought, though, that this was just how parenting felt. I was also working and was back in the bank making deposits just five days after Kid A was born, not realizing that this was just plain dumb.
Sometimes I look back at myself and think, "You poor girl."
Anyways. My grandparents.
They came and they saw our precious first baby (my Grandma was big on the word precious, and since she just passed away in April, it still hurts me to write 'was') and Grandma cuddled him close, just like I've seen that she did to us, when we were born, in photos in our old photo album. She always had this fierce, possessive look on her face when she was holding us. I feel that face glomming onto my own face, at times, when I look at my kids.
She was holding Kid A out, away from her a little, with his head in her hands, looking into his wee face. ("Oh the laddie," she would say.) He started to coo to her.
"Oh yes, tell me a story," she told him. "Tell Grandma Great a story."
And this is what I've thought of, every time my kids get to this absolutely incredible stage. The telling stories stage.
Because can't you just see the story begging to be told?
"It was big! No it was REALLY BIG!"
"It was a big, beautiful light, and I started to sing to it, like this!"
"That's all. Now you tell me something."
"I love it! I love YOU! I'm so happy!"
"You have really beautiful eyes, did you know that?"
"So beautiful that I will sing to them!"
The littlest things can be missed. I may never have realized that my babies were telling me stories, if it wasn't for my Grandma.
There's nothing like the lessons of someone in your life who already had grown up children when YOU were born.
(Chinua took these photos. I love them.)
I was floundering, a little. I was doing okay. Just okay. I had hemorrhaged after Kid A was born, so I was very anemic and weak, tired and overwhelmed. I thought, though, that this was just how parenting felt. I was also working and was back in the bank making deposits just five days after Kid A was born, not realizing that this was just plain dumb.
Sometimes I look back at myself and think, "You poor girl."
Anyways. My grandparents.
They came and they saw our precious first baby (my Grandma was big on the word precious, and since she just passed away in April, it still hurts me to write 'was') and Grandma cuddled him close, just like I've seen that she did to us, when we were born, in photos in our old photo album. She always had this fierce, possessive look on her face when she was holding us. I feel that face glomming onto my own face, at times, when I look at my kids.
She was holding Kid A out, away from her a little, with his head in her hands, looking into his wee face. ("Oh the laddie," she would say.) He started to coo to her.
"Oh yes, tell me a story," she told him. "Tell Grandma Great a story."
And this is what I've thought of, every time my kids get to this absolutely incredible stage. The telling stories stage.
Because can't you just see the story begging to be told?
"It was big! No it was REALLY BIG!"
"It was a big, beautiful light, and I started to sing to it, like this!"
"That's all. Now you tell me something."
"I love it! I love YOU! I'm so happy!"
"You have really beautiful eyes, did you know that?"
"So beautiful that I will sing to them!"
The littlest things can be missed. I may never have realized that my babies were telling me stories, if it wasn't for my Grandma.
There's nothing like the lessons of someone in your life who already had grown up children when YOU were born.
(Chinua took these photos. I love them.)