Grandchildren

I am sitting here wondering why I feel so fulfilled after such a long time of not holding Taonenyasha/Theodore and Tanashe/Theone in my arms. I start to wonder what other people have said about grandparents-grandchildren relationships. I google that up just to get a feel of how other grandparents have described that relationship. The first quote was this one!

Grandchildren are the dots that connect the lines from generation to generation. ~Lois Wyse!

Now I am connected to my granchildren through their mother, just as I was connected to my grandparents through my mother, just as she was also connected to her own grandparents through her parents and so on and so on. How very appropriate! I look at Tao and I cannot help but realize that here is my own extension through my daughter! I look at Tana and hear her laugh and see her smile and she touches my heart because I recognize a little bit of my own smile in hers! At some point in my life I was that innocent, I laughed without a care, I smiled to show my love, Tana and Tao do the same but they care. Before they could fully trust me they had to realize my love for them. Now they come to me as Tao says 'Gogo' and Tana says 'baby' to me and we  threel roll on the floor for hours just grandma and grandbabies! I see that dimple on Tana's cheek and I know the day I will leave her I am going to have a hole that deep in my heart because I do not ever want to leave! I hear Tao's voice as I drift off to sleep and relaize I never want to miss his voice in my ears ever again.

Then I find another quote......
Perfect love sometimes does not come until the first grandchild. ~Welsh Proverb.

One saying, that perfect love does not come until the first grandchild, and the second, and the third, and the next and th next and it will always be perfect with each grandchild because they will all be perfect! I cannot explain it but there is comething so special in my heart, not that I never felt it for my children, I did but then this time it is multiplied tenfold. Maybe it is because when I had my children I was still so very young and did not even look beyond bringing them up. Now that they are adults I cannot believe I have been blessed to see my own grandchildren. I have siblings who did not live to see their own children grow up as such I appreciate this life that I have been blessed with. I have friends who died in the prime of their lives, with so many plans, they never realized, and I am so grateful that I have realized so many plans some that I never even thought I had. Yes I have now experienced perfect love through my grandchildren., not only one but so far two, how can I not feel this perfect love!

A grandmother is a babysitter who watches the kids instead of the television. ~Author Unknown

I cannot believe I have been sitting in this house for five days now and I have not even tried to watch the news! All I have been watching Cbiebees, Toy Story, Toy Book, Simpsons, Smurfs, Elmo, and all the British children's TV shows. I last read story books to Farai when he was in grade school now he is a man in his 20s! These few days it has been Tao and Tana counting, jumping, riding horse, reading, doing the alphabet and I find my heart nostalgic with that love I had for my children while we read and played. What babysitter can be as perfect as that babysitting and teaching. We laugh, we run, we take naps, and yes watch TV shows Tao loves, and Tana watches innocently, and we take our own home videos, memories to treasure forever. For me TV for these days is not even missed because I have real live drama with my grandbabies! I wonder when Bravo is going to bring on the show Real Live Grandmothers and Their Grandchildren for you never know with reality TV!

Then I see another quote.........
What children need most are the essentials that grandparents provide in abundance. They give unconditional love, kindness, patience, humor, comfort, lessons in life. And, most importantly, cookies. ~Rudolph Giuliani.

I never thought at any point and time I would quote Rudolph Giuliani in anything but here he gives  me the icing on the cake! I might not have brought cookies but we have been munching on peanuts because in my culture that's what grandmother's provide in abundance besides life peanuts to make you thirsty and drink! I have love unconditional, patience like I never knew, humor to see the fun in what I do not even understand, comfort in knowing them, kindness because they need it in this world, care how can I not, and lots of kisses and hugs!

Grandchildren are the reverse of all I have said above about grandparents! So there is no difference, grandchildren provide us with lessons that we did not know when our own children were younger, they reconnect us to our children as adults as we only knew them as our children, they take us back to our own childhood to our own grandparents and realize the lessons we learned what we know without even knowing we were being taught anything, they bring memories of our own parents because that was the role we thought we knew the most but now realize as our own children try hard that we did not know anything. Grandchildren are more than just dots that connect generation to generation, they are the link pins that ensure we never get disconnected and that generations are interconnected together forever!

When a child is born, so are grandmothers. ~Judith Levy

I was born more than 50 years ago, and so my role as a grandparent was born! It just did not start when the child the grandchild was born we are prepared for the role from the day we are born!