Connecting With Jeannie

Tidbits About My Grandchildren

As I said at the beginning of my blog, I am a grandmother of six. Yes, they were a handful when I had to babysit. One of my grandchildren, Tristan, has ADHD, and he would stay with me when his parents went on a weekend vacation. When I tried to coax him into taking his pills, that always turned into a fight, so I just gave up. I didn't want to be the bad guy, making him do something he didn't want to do. He was highly active, so I found things for him to do. He liked throwing the basketball, so I made a game out of it - How many baskets can he make, can you beat me? These were fun times, and I enjoyed being with him. He loved skating, skiing downhill in the wintertime and later, he practiced skateboarding.

Another of my grandchildren, Nathan, Tristan's brother, has Asperger’s and a touch of autism. I couldn't believe, when he grew older, the doctor prescribed six pills for him to take! My husband and I frowned when noticing how many pills he had to take. He smiled at us and took them all at once. He's a loner at times, and we would let him be. When he felt like socializing, we had a great time together. When he was a baby, I took care of him when his parents went to work, and he was a joy. When he got older, after his parents got a divorce, he became a handful. Was it because his mother babied him? I don't know! I still enjoyed being with him. He loves building things out of Lego's and some of the things he builds are impressive. I don't know how many Lego sets he has, but this is how he passes away his time.

Nick, their cousin, had the same likes as Tristan. Anything that is challenging, he loves! He always wanted to trick us on Christmas, asking what we gave him? I told him no way am I telling you! He told me, "It's okay, grandma, I forget easy." I remember the time when he took his dad's jigsaw tool, he was around three at the time, his little legs were moving as he ran to throw it into his swimming pool. His dad ran after him yelling, no! But it was to no avail, he tossed it in. We all laughed, and his dad scolded us, "Don't encourage him!" He never liked the plastic tools we bought him; he liked the real tools his dad had. One Christmas he got a red 'Electric 4X4 Truck that he could drive. He really enjoyed it and would give the two neighbor girls a ride. That was the cutest thing, three blond kids, sitting together, each were around five years old.

Leah, Nick's sister, is a joy. I mean, she had her mischievous phase, but has grown into quite a little girl. She loves all living things, and won't hurt them. When I stepped on a spider, she scolded me. I told, "I don't want that thing crawling back into the house, that's why I stepped on it." She loves horses with a passion! She thinks our llama, Bosco, our donkey, Daisy. and our goats and sheep are amazing. She gave each a name! She loves going to the zoo, play golf with her Uncle Kevin, and going on fair rides. Her little friend, Tori, didn't like going on rides, so Leah went on by herself. At the zoo, Leah was around six, she paced back and forth with the lion, and it looked like the lion was perturbed about it. So glad there was glass in between them. When she was small, she liked to mock different sounds like me clearing my throat, my son, Daniel, snapping his fingers, or whistling a tune. Anything that caught her fancy, she would mock it.

Monica was a sad little girl that my daughter took in as her own. She was her husband daughter in his first marriage. Her mother didn't want her, so Gail became her mother. She had anger spells at first, but soon began to trust her father and Gail. She called me grandma, and I loved her for it. She loved to play dress up! While Leah was a tom boy, she was all girl who played with dolls, loved her Barbie Jeep, and loved school. She made friends easy and would meet them at the park - located nearby to her home. Nick and Leah were her brother and sister, Monica was two years older than them, so she would watch out for them. She didn't like riding horses, they scared her, but she didn't mind her uncle's three-wheeler. She got to be flower-girl twice and loved her beautiful dresses she got to wear to the weddings. Now if this was Leah, there would be a fight to get her to wear a dress, no matter how beautiful.

Now I come to my last grandchild, Keara. When her parents parted ways, her mother moved away, and would not let my son see his own child. Who knew that it would come to this? We all liked Keara's mother, but she began showing her true colors when she got the engagement ring. We still gave her a pass, thinking this would all change when they got married. My son feels this was the biggest mistake of his life to ever get involved with her. The only thing that made him stay with her was his child. As the days went by, she turned Keara against her dad. She coaxed her to call her dad by his first name instead of Daddy. It got so bad that he asked for a divorce, never realizing he would never see his child again. We all remember Keara, love her, and pray that she is happy.

“Grandchildren are a gift from above: one to cherish and to love.”