I remember exactly where I was when I learned the sex of my first grandchild–in front of the Cooper-Hewitt Museum in Manhattan. The parents to be are so happy at the beginning of the pregnancy. There is another old saying: you are only as happy as your unhappiest child. Every one is happy. Savor this time.
FIRST GREAT TIP: Find a song that brings back beautiful memories of the birth of your grandchild or adopt the one I found. At the same time I was to become a new grandma, the group, Savage Garden, came out with the perfect song: I knew I loved You Before I Met You. Listen to it on www.youtube.com. Put in Savage Garden 2000 I Knew I loved You. Here are the lyrics. You will love this song as a new grandma. I play it again and again as each grandchild is born. My heart just fills with joy.
Title: Savage Garden – I Knew I Loved You lyrics
Maybe it’s intuition but some things you just don’t question Like in your eyes, I see my future in an instant And there it goes, I think I found my best friend I know that it might sound more than a little crazy but I believe…
I knew I loved you before I met you I think I dreamed you into life I knew I loved you before I met you I have been waiting all my life
There’s just no rhyme or reason Only the sense of completion And in your eyes, I see the missing pieces I’m searching for I think I’ve found my way home I know that it might sound more than a little crazy but I believe…
I knew I loved you before I met you I think I dreamed you into life I knew I loved you before I met you I have been waiting all my life
A thousand angels dance around you I am complete now that I’ve found you
I knew I loved you before I met you I think I dreamed you into life I knew I loved you before I met you I have been waiting all my life
I knew I loved you before I met you I think I dreamed you into life I knew I loved you before I met you I have been waiting all my life
SECOND GREAT TIP: Allow the parents to dictate as to their life together as new parents. Who will be at the first sonogram is the first family sorting challenge for the parents to be. Remember our responsibility to make sure the parents to be are healthy and happy and relaxed and secure? Let them decide who is going to be present, who they are going to call and how. Usually the mother to be calls her parents and the father to be calls his parents because they feel this is the most fair way to talk about it. The parents will share the first sonogram and the picture will be on everyone’s refrigerator. How much stress and conflict you want to cause this new family depends on how much your needs comes before their need to develop their own boundaries of their new family. Huh? Think about it.
Respect their boundaries EXCEPT try to be present at the now 4D sonogram at 20 weeks. I only got to see 3D with each of my grandchildren and saw one grandchild in the uterus when he was two weeks late. It is being part of an experience that is too joyful to properly describe. Smiles on everyone’s faces, laughing, tears, joy. These sonograms show the baby moving around in three dimension. When my first grandchild was two weeks late, we saw his features perfectly. If your children do not know about 4D sonograms, have them ask about it. Sometimes it is only done in high risk pregnancies and sometimes you just have to ask. Sometimes there is an extra charge above what the charge would be for a regular sonogram.
THIRD GREAT TIP: Listen and love and say little that would cause more stress. The most stressful time for everyone is the testing that now takes place during the pregnancy. Some of it comes with a false positive. Think in advance how to help your child if there is a false positive. Think of a way to take their minds off waiting for results, and possibly results of further testing. Listen and love. These tests did not exist when we were pregnant. Talk about our ignorant bliss. It was amazing that we never had all the worries created by the modern testing. Your children will not believe we did not have a clue about sex, health, etc. We waited. There is no patience anymore. Immediate gratification world.
FOURTH GREAT TIP: Pamper the parents to be. Remind the parents to be that life is different after the baby is born and to take advantage of this last “alone time” until their youngest leaves the house. If you are able, give them a gift certificate for a dinner out, a night at a hotel. Cook a few dinners of their favorite recipes so they have them in their freezer. Bake their favorite cookies. Do errands for them. Consider giving the mother to be a prenatal massage or learn how to do reflexology yourself and give foot massages. Laura Norman has a great how to book on reflexology and now her website has so much information to offer. www.lauranorman.com All just because you love them and loving them brings joy.
FIFTH GREAT TIP. Find a grandma hobby that you love to do and helps everyone. It seems that is what you are supposed to do. Some new grandmas did the hobby with a parent to be and some just developed it on their own.
Some of my new grandma friends learned to knit. The sweaters and blankets were beautiful. I did not have the time and my mother knitted each great grand child to be, before her death, a sweater set, hat and booties and crocheted a blanket. If there is a great grandmother to be, it is wonderful if they knit and can do this for you to save for the future. My mother only saw one great grandchild, but the knitted items will be handed down, keeping her alive in our hearts forever. Joy.
Some of my new grandma friends did scrap booking. Their albums are works of art. I tried it. Very time consuming.
Some of my new grandma friends took photography classes. Their pictures remain works of art. I am waiting until I am retired. Too much time to do it well right now.
I shop and surf the web, so my first hobby is what I love to do: shop on the web. I am sharing the best shopping tips and websites I found and use today. My second hobby is unique to my family’s history. Please share yours.
Finding the perfect maternity clothes was the first thing I did. Sales and coupons are a must. If you haven’t looked at www.retailmenot.com you are missing out on promotion codes for practically everything you can buy. Collecting from others is a great help. If any of your friends’ children are done with their maternity clothes, see if you can borrow. There is now a website to rent maternity clothes which is great if the mother to be has a formal event to go to and spending the money on a formal maternity dress is just a waste of money. You can find a formal dress to rent for $25 and maybe even find one to rent for $16: http://minefornine.com/list-items/dresses-evening-wear
I even searched the web for the best baby lists of the most current “must have” baby items. The list nine years ago looks nothing like the list for my newest grandson who is six months old. Most of the baby websites have lists to start with. I double checked the best quality items by using www.consumerreports.org and www.epinions.com, but sometimes the models were not up to date. So, I emailed my grandma friends with the lists and asked them to ask their children who already had children to review and edit for me. You get the best baby list by having new mothers review and edit standard baby website lists. The amount of new “stuff” is amazing. Not like when we had kids. We had room to breathe in our homes. Now the homes are wall to wall baby stuff.
I started to collect the cheapest best items for my house. I wanted the parents to be to visit often and feel that they would have to bring nothing so I wanted my house stocked with what they needed too. New parents find it hard to gather together the baby AND everything the baby needs to visit you.
http://www.craigslist.com/ really came in handy to buy used items, but be careful of recalls and dangerous items, such as old cribs and car seats. I bought a swing, bathtub, car seat (after checking it out carefully on the web to make sure it was safe) on craigslist. I bought a high chair recommended on consumer reports as the best cheap one and we all agree it is better than their more expensive versions. I started to watch sales for diapers, A & D, books, and other basics and started collecting little by little for them and me.
There are so many awards for toys, books, videos. The best website overall is
www.toyportfolio.com. They test everything on a baby or child of the age to use it. Their reviews are most accurate. My grandchildren play with Oppenheimer Toy Award toys on this website more often than with any other toys.
What joy.
I decided that, because my family lacked a history as I am a child of Holocaust survivors and most of our family was killed, that tradition and creating a history was most important for me. I decided to create photo albums for my grandchildren, beginning from during the pregnancy. The first picture is the first sonogram. The ones for the little grandchildren have pretty markers and stickers. As the grandchildren got older, they helped me name their teachers, friends, relatives. I chronicle their lives. Every milestone. Every caretaker. Every event in their lives. Every holiday. The inside and outside of their home and especially their room. The grandchild with all family members and friends and teachers and classmates and activities and sports as they grow up. They get one at holiday time each year. At their birthdays, we start at album one and continue through the most current album, remembering their lives. Of course, Grandma and Grandpa are very prevalent in the albums. The grandchildren love their albums. The albums get tattered and you will have to repair the albums. They look at the pictures alone. They ask their parents to go through the albums with them. They take the albums to bed with them. That means you are always with them. Pure joy.
MORE COMING ABOUT: The best thing you can do is make sure the parents to be are healthy and happy and relaxed as secure: THE FIRST RULE OF NEVER SAY NO. Yes, there is more than one rule of never say no.
UNTIL NEXT TIME.
JOY,
GRANDMA
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