Grandparenting: Two Speeds

Daphne and Me, Wearing Our Costumes. April, 2015.

Rich and I cared for my daughter’s two youngest ones this past weekend. Might I say, without putting too fine a point on it, that menopause was one of God’s very best design features? My respect for parents, and their keeping up with their loveable tilt-a-whirl preschoolers, is rejuvenated.

And you grandparents who have assumed full-time care of your grandchildren?

You’re rock stars. 

Sawyer. Apple Juice. Doc McStuffins.

Saturday morning, Daphne toddles down the stairs, dragging her purple blanket.

Where’s Papa Rich? she asks, settling in beside me on the loveseat.

He’s in the garage.

But I need him! 

I ask what she needs, anticipating an answer like milk or juice. 

I have to hug him, she explains.

Of course.

Sawyer sidles up to me after dinner.

Lala? Can I snuggle with you?

As he would say, um, yeah.

After a visit to the park, which yields shoes full of sand, one lopsided ponytail, and running from the teeter-totter to the slide and back again–all to a soundtrack of squeals–little Daphne falls asleep in the car. She wraps herself around me as I lift her from her car seat and opens one eye before returning to sleep in the middle of a diaper change. I cover her with her Disney Princess blanket, trace the curve of her immaculate cheek, marvel again at her plush eyelashes. She sighs from within her sleeping and sinks deeper into rest.

I’m reminded that these littles have two speeds: Park and Overdrive.  Anything worthy of their attention deserves their undivided focus, be it feeding peas to the dog or climbing the ladder that leads to the slide or cuddling up with an adoring grandparent.

Children devote themselves to love as earnestly as they do to play. Or sleep.

When it comes to love, children are all in. 

I wonder: is that what Jesus meant when He admonished us to come to Him like children?

²³ Whatever you do, do your workheartily, as for the Lord rather than for men, ²⁴ knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve.

Colossians 3:23-24 (NASB)

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