Revolutionary Grandparents by Helen Conroy

Author:Helen Conroy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse
Published: 2016-04-26T00:00:00+00:00

10

Crackle and Pop

“No Mom and Dad—Just Grammy and Papa”

THE NURSERY WAS ALL SET FOR THE ARRIVAL OF OUR DAUGHTER AND son-in-law’s firstborn. We were all so excited. Our daughter lived an hour and a half away, so the week before her due date, Crackle went to stay with her and her husband. She was not going to take a chance and miss the birth of this baby. He was born exactly one week late. Alexander was finally here, with his big blue eyes and lots of curly brown hair, so precious. It was instant love.

I (Crackle) stayed with our daughter and son-in-law over the next several months. I wanted to spend every moment with my grandson and help my daughter. Pop would come visit us every weekend. We had so many fun outings together, like going to Sesame Street Live. It was always sad when Pop had to leave Sunday night.

Alexander was a very active baby. I remember how he would crawl up to me requesting his bottle (“babas,” as he would call it), playing peek-a-boo and patty-cake, and looking for his toys. He really liked playing a game where we would throw the ball up the stairs and laugh watching it bounce back down. Alexander also loved to play in the cupboards, banging the pots and pans. In short, he did the things that all babies do.

When Alexander woke up for his nightly feedings, I would go into his room and sit with my daughter. I truly did not want to miss one moment of this time, because I realize that time goes by so fast. One night, Alexander kept waking up. As my daughter, son-in-law, and I were all sitting in Alexander’s room at 3:00 a.m., I looked at both of them and said, “Yep, your life is not going to change.” It was a joke between the three of us, because they kept telling me, “When we have our son, he is going to have to adjust to our life. How hard can it be to have one baby?” However, here we were, sitting there, the three of us, exhausted. I told them, “Welcome to parenthood.”

Alexander started walking at around nine months. As soon as he could walk, he became fascinated by soccer. He would kick and dribble the ball around with his little feet, and we were sure he was going to be a soccer pro. We spent hours playing in the yard.

At this time, Alexander was hitting all his milestones, except for speech, where he was definitely delayed. I went to most of his doctor’s appointments with my daughter. I listened as she questioned the doctor about the speech delay. The doctor kept telling her, “You have a healthy, happy baby.” He is a boy, the doctor said, and boys start talking later than girls. My daughter also wondered why her son was having so many ear infections, and again the doctor’s response was that it was normal. Then the questions about vaccines came up.

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