On Becoming a Granddaddy – One Year Anniversary

This week, I will be celebrating the one-year anniversary of becoming a granddaddy for the first time.

Of course of even more significance, this means that our first grandchild, our grandson will be celebrating his first birthday. I wrote last year on how I learned that I had become a granddaddy so I won’t repeat myself. But as our grandson’s birthday approached, I realized that his birthday would always mark my anniversary of becoming a granddaddy. It is like I will be co-celebrating his birthday with him each year for the rest of our lives.

Although we won’t be able to be with our grandson on his birthday since he is our “long distance” grandchild, we were fortunate to get to celebrate his birthday about three weeks early when we were visiting my daughter’s in-laws over the 4^th of July weekend.

And with both sets of grandparents, along with his parents and one of his uncles singing “Happy Birthday”, we were able to wish him a happy one-year birthday.

When I thought about this one-year milestone some more, I realized how appropriate it was that my daughter had her son to coincide with me becoming a granddaddy. For it is with my daughter that I have shared an anniversary of sorts each year on her birthday.

Over three decades ago, my daughter was born five days after I started a new job. And although the company has been bought twice in my career there, I still work at the same location. So when I want to recall how long I have worked at this job, I simply have to remember how old my daughter is.

Interestingly, my youngest son managed to perfectly match this anniversary theme.

He became a father to his daughter, my first granddaughter exactly six months to the day after our grandson was born.

So now that I have been a granddaddy for just about a year, what has it been like? Wonderful!

I’ve always heard that the best part about becoming a parent is becoming a grandparent and I must say my experience has validated that statement. After your kids are grown and you see small babies out in public, at least for a man, you don’t necessarily think too much about it. But when that small child is your grandchild, it makes all the difference in the world.

You find that you make funny noises and faces to get them to smile or laugh.

You enjoy holding them and giving them kisses.

You enjoy playing with them, especially cars for me.

And when it is their bedtime, you get to go home and sleep through the night knowing you won’t be woken in the night by little crying sounds.

Our grandparent situation is our grandson lives far away and so the daily interaction he has with my wife is via Face Time. But our granddaughter is local and so we see her much more frequently in person.

Recently in fact, we had the opportunity for our granddaughter, five-months old at the time, to get to spend several days with us while her parents vacationed in Florida.

It was our first sleepover for a grandchild.

It started out early one Saturday morning with a less than easy departure for her parents, especially for her mom. We then loaded up all of the things we would need and drove to our home.

We set up a place for our granddaughter to play and soon we were FaceTiming with our granddaughter’s aunt and her cousin.

She got to go on two errands with me that first day, one to the farmer’s market to buy some salmon (since we planned on cooking out rather than dining out) and then a fun adventure to the “Once upon a child” store where we got some clothes and loaded up on shoes.

And before dinner, we got to go for a stroll since the weather was so nice.

And throughout the day, my wife and I diligently kept a log of activities so we would know when to expect she would want to eat again.

By 7:30, we thought she was down for the night…

…but turned out it was just a nap.

Our son called from their vacation and told us she had been staying up until around 10:00 PM. That certainly explained the short nap. She did finally go to sleep for good at about 11:30 and slept until 5:30 in the morning, her usual wake up time.

After a quick change of diaper, she and I were both ready for another day.

Reflecting back over the year, I must say it has been blissful being a grandparent. It has been so much fun, it has caused me to want to accelerate my retirement plans so that I can spend even more time with our grandkids and their parents. And I look forward to the next exciting grand parenting event that will add even more to this anniversary.