Grandchildren

On my last post, The Gramma Tag, I joked about having to clean more toilets, using more milk and cereal, etc. when our grandkids come. Please don't get me wrong. We love having our grandkids come.

Anyone who has been in our house, knows how much we cater to our grandkids. We have furniture that they can sit on, food in the cupboard they can eat, toys in the kitchen corner to play with, books in the bookcases for them to read. They are always welcomed!

What would it be like if you didn't have your grandkids in your home? Well, Sister Adams and I sat appalled one evening at dinner in the Ambassador Restaurant at the PCC when one of the volunteers described his house: No children allowed. Huge glass windows overlooking the valley. A showcase. A home out of Better Homes and Gardens. Etc. Etc. He went on through most of the dinner describing his house, how inconvenient it was when his wife died and left him with a teenage daughter, how his new wife loves to travel with him, etc.

We both came away dumbfounded! We certainly lost any respect we had for the man if we had some before. We knew he was different....but so anti children? It was unbelievable that someone who is active in their church and has a testimony that Families are Forever, that they are an eternal unit, could say the things he said. For us, no possession in your life can replace the joy of having your children and grandchildren around you.

I have heard some people say they wished they could have had their grandchildren first when they were younger! LOL. But that is only a testimony of how great their own children are to have raise good grandchildren.

One day last fall, I was manning a table that the PCC Mission Settlement had set up at an LDS Conference at BYUH. I was wearing my missionary badge on my muumuu. Sister Ardath Kapp came by and noticing my badge, said: "A mission in Hawaii. What a sacrifice!" Of course, she was only saying it in the same way as others who have commented on a mission in Hawaii, that is wasn't much of a sacrifice to go there.

I told her, "Yes, Sister Kapp, it is a sacrifice." "What are you sacrificing here?" she responded. "I have twenty-four grandkids at home." I replied. "Oh," she said, "I understand."

Yes, it was a sacrifice to leave all those kids behind. Being a grandmother is great, because you can enjoy your grandkids, but you don't have all the frustration of having to raise them. Well, not all of them, and not all the time.

We missed out on graduations, a wedding, a new baby, a baptism, and a missionary farewell among many things. We missed just seeing them and being around them.

So, we don't care how many times we have to scrub the toilet, buy more milk and cereal, buckle kids into their car seats, wipe up the floor. We enjoy our grandkids and we love to have them visit.