Of course, I always expected to be, and looked forward to becoming a grandmother. Just maybe not quite so soon.
It turns out, that both of my children were absent when birth control was discussed at school and at home - both of them were parents at 19. While I'm not thrilled about their early parenthood, I am positively smitten with not only the kids (4 of them, now) but, with being a grandmother, too. I saw 2 of them enter this world and I cut one umbilical cord.
I find that, while I may not always be able to physically keep up with a toddler (certainly not the last couple of weeks), I have oodles more patience than I did when my own kids were small. Of course, it helps that when they're at 'Oma's house'; they don't pull the sort of nonsense they do at home. They are perfect little angels when they're here. (That ought to piss mom and dad right off!)
At the time I am writing this, they are 5, 4, almost 2, and 9 months old. All but one are healthy; our youngest (Olivia) was born with a condition called Hydranencephaly, caused by a perinatal stroke. In many ways she is a perfectly normal baby; in some ways, she is not. There really is no accurate prediction of what she will and won't be able to do - and, I've decided that's fine by me. Let's not limit her potential by our expectations.
I can't wait to see what great people all of these assorted little nuts will develop into. (Inside joke: I dubbed the first one a peanut and, as they say, the rest is history)
June 19th, 2018
Time for an update:
Olivia left us on June 30th, 2017... 2 weeks after her 2nd birthday. We are planning on planting a tree for her this Canada Day, here at my home. I look forward to watching over it and see it grow.
And, on St. Patrick's Day 2018, we got another litte addition to the family. A healthy, happy baby boy :)