Words From A Grandma

As you enter a new year of this season called mothering, I'd like to offer some encouragement for what you have to look forward to. Now, I realize it's a few years away yet ... these preschool years of potties and naptimes are followed by years of school ... years of piano and dance lessons and the inevitable recitals ... years of sports practices and endless weekend games. Years of siblings fighting so much you think they'll probably never speak to each other once they get out of the house. 

Then they're gone... college, marriage, and the best part, grandchildren.  Ahhhh - you've arrived!

Now here's the part I want you to be encouraged by - the day will come when your son, the one with whom you've butted heads most severely, calls and says, "Mom, thanks for putting up with me when I was two years old." That is a day for rejoicing! 

And the day will come when your little boy, now the father of an almost-two-year-old, says, "Do you know what he did now?! He unrolled almost a whole roll of toilet paper into the toilet and then flushed it! Why did he do that? I never did that..." And with glee, you can reply, "Yes, you sure did!"

"Mom, he told me 'no' when I asked him to pick up his toys! Surely I never did that..."  "Oh, yes, son, you did." 

"Mom, he kept getting out of bed last night. Now I know I never did that...did I?"  "What do you think?" 

Oh yes, I am enjoying grandparenting more than I can tell you. The things that seemed just awful at the time I was raising my own preschoolers are now memories that bring a smile to my face. And I am encouraged that maybe, just maybe, I wasn't such a horrible mother; after all, I see my sons using some of the same parenting styles they survived during my early, inexperienced days of mothering. (And by the way, my three adult sons eventually stopped fighting and are now best of friends and maintain close communication with each other.)   
 
There is light at the end of the tunnel, Mom, and you have a lot to look forward to. Happy New Year!

By Georgia Skiles, Office Manager at MOPS International.  Excerpted from MOPS Mom-E-Mail, January 5, 2004.  Copyright © 2003 by MOPS International, Inc, www.mops.org.