God Was Right!

Oh, yes! God was so right when he made parents and grandparents different from each other, giving each unique roles and jobs!

Parents are meant to be young, energetic, quite flexible and a little innocent and naive! Grandparents are to be wise, gentle, tolerant, loving and ready to send young ones home at the end of the day. Now, let me say--it is hard to be all of these things at once--particularly when no one goes home at the end of the day.

Why this topic? Because today we had the joy? pleasure? challenge! exhausting! experience of a 7 year old birthday party. Twelve active seven and eight year old boys, all totally into being boys, do sap energy and give reason to collapse and vegetate when all go home (except one.)

I guess it is no suprise that all boys like pizza and soda so feeding them was easy. Not so watching all of them at once in the pool. This year the deep end of the pool belongs to them--no more staying where feet touch the bottom. Watching the horseplay and making sure all are safe is more than a full time responsibility. Fortunately, several of the parents stayed around and so it was easier than it might have been.

This is a short one--just wanted to give a little addendum to the last entry where I sort of sloughed off the question asking if this role is difficult sometimes. The answer to that, if you question it, is yes, sometimes it is quite difficult and not for the faint hearted. We really live one day, one phase at a time, as, if we stop to think of the future ahead of us, it quickly becomes quite scary and overwhelming. Imagine being 79 when your child turns 21! Or would you rather not? Where did our old age go? Maybe we just won't have one!