Bath Hoodie

My Church has a wonderful program that promotes friendships and care for the needs of sisters called Visiting Teaching. Basically, every woman is assigned a partner with whom she visits four or five sisters each month. In turn, each woman also has two sisters who visit her each month...clear as mud? When B was born, my visiting teacher also happened to be my pediatrician. This sweet woman just loves children and had difficulty carrying pregnancies to term. She and her husband would have liked to have had a very large family, but they were so thankful to have finally gotten the two darling children they finally were able to have. So, on top of being a doctor and mom, she was my visiting teacher. Shortly after B was born, she made me one of these hooded bath towels. It always touched my heart that this woman, who could likely afford anything she wanted to give as a gift, chose to give us the one thing she was short on: Her time. I still have that gift and have used it with all three babies, it's in very rough shape now, but I'll never part with it.

Last night, at the ripe old age of 33, I became a grandmother. The situation is not the happiest, but we have hopes that it will improve. The mother is very young and has a string of psychological challenges. Long story short, it has been best for us to stay in the background as we support our son as he tries to cope with the situation.

At any rate, sad and worried as I am for the situation, I wanted to show our new grand-daughter that we do love her more than she may ever know, and wouldn't you know it, I thought of that gift given by a thoughtful and loving visiting teacher over 9 years ago. So I sat down this morning and made this:



The only thing I ever disliked about the one that was given to me was that the hood quickly became too small...I blame the kids for that. ;O) So I made this one adjustable. The buttons keep it small for now and when she's bigger, they can simply undo them and the hood will be larger.





I think it turned out really cute. I'm so hoping M will be able to bring her for a visit so I can take some newborn shots here in the next couple weeks.



And by the way, if you are over the age of fifteen hours old, you may not call me Grandma.

Bounty

Here's tonight's harvest:



And there are a few more things waiting for us down there:










But the chickens are unhappy with the heat and are going on strike.

The Tail End

Yesterday, Hubster and I decided that Commencement exercises were created by people who have two or fewer kids. It's fun to see her so excited to move onto the next phase of her life. She was 5 when Hubster and I got married, and her graduation marks the end...the end of something I can't quite put my finger on. We're the child support-ed, not the child support-er, so, it isn't that. The nest is obviously not empty, so it's not that. Maybe it is that the negotiations with the ex-spouse are officially over. That part hasn't been too tough for a while now, but even so, I guess it's just the idea that they are all adults now and make their own choices and be cognizant of everything that needs to go into and results from, those choices. I no longer feel the weight of being responsible for them pressing down on me.



Don't get me wrong, I've always felt that we were a family, I've always done for my step-kids as though they were my own, but I always did feel a deep responsibility to their mother. That sense of responsibility has really made a separation in the past couple of years. Teenagers are tough. I can't pretend I didn't wish on more than one occasion that their mother would have had to deal with them instead of me. Being the Disneyland parent sounded pretty good sometimes. But overall, I'm just glad to be moving into a new relationship with my now grown step kids. Instead of feeling compelled to teach, I am looking forward to sitting back and letting them come to me for advice. Instead of feeling the need to set guidelines and enforce rules, I am looking forward to letting natural consequences take over and leave me as the sympathetic ear.

I know it's not really the end of anything to me, but it still feels like a new beginning.