Features

Summer Milestones

Posted on: June 05, 2007

by Barbara Orr

I have ten grandchildren, nine live in Pocatello; I have been blessed to be near them all since they have been born, I saw most of them when they were only hours old.

My oldest granddaughter is flying around the country this summer, teaching classes. She is a student at ISU. I spent many happy summers with her camping and swimming before the other grandchildren arrived. She was 8 when the first of a set of seven were born. 7 others are from 11 to 3 and I’ve been taking them to parks, swimming and on vacations for years.

Every 3 to 4 weeks they all spend the night with me as a group. I have a small house and they really fill it up. They are like a group of old relatives, they ask each other about how things are going, advise each other on family issues and discuss their current problems with me. I love being a grandparent, because if anything gets overwhelming for me, I just call their parents.

One of their favorite things to do at my house is to be measured, I have a piece of well ruined door molding with all of their heights and dates of the measurement on it, and some times they have grown two inches when we measure them. At first no one could reach the line of my height with their hand, now 4 of them can reach it, and two of them are almost as tall as I am.

Most times they are all excellent together as they have developed their own pecking order and they play together in small assorted groups and shift groups for the time they are with me. One of my favorite memories of them was a time when the ice cream truck came by, and the big ones were describing the choices to the little ones to help each person make their selection.

Another time, they had taken all of the little chairs outside and lined them up along the fence, out of grandma’s ear shot and 6 at a time sat on the chairs, While one stood up to tell a story, they took turns until all of the stories were told.

Yesterday, we built a garden, and went swimming with three of my grandchildren and one of their mothers. We started with a weed patch and ended up with a garden in an hour and a half, everyone helped, and it made quick work of it. They are old enough now to be really useful.

The swimming was the reward for the garden work. We spent most of the time in the lazy river and the two girls at 7 and 8 decided they were too grown up for the kiddy pool. My 11 year old grandson has been too old for it for 3 years. They all went across the lily pads with the teenagers for the first time. David can swim now and the two girls can swim enough to get to the edge. It seemed like a dream To me, because it seems like yesterday that I was carrying them to the edge of the Kiddie pool and encouraging them to put their tiny feet in the water.

I hope you take them time to enjoy the summer, things do pass so quickly.

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