hundreds of miles away

I love being a grandma. At first I wasn't too sure about it, because I still wanted more children. You might call me green. Nobody should be having children if I couldn't get pregnant. But those feelings passed. Holding the little ones and playing with the walkers, my heart became reconciled to the Grammy mode.

I'm the fun Grammy. I love to color, do play dough, and push them on the swing. But I don't always have a chance to see the cute little people as often as I would like.

My children had distant grandmas, too. All of them tried to keep in touch in various ways, but one of them did something that was particularly memorable. She sent parties. Sometimes they had cookies and stickers. Some times they had gifts or clothes. But they were always for obscure holidays. I've adopted her idea.

For the 4th, I send red, white, and blue t-shirts or dresses. I send cookies and toothbrushes at Halloween. This year the toothbrushes were orange and black. For Thanksgiving and Easter, I send books and jammies (really, really, really want to make these this year). I try to find a fun soft red or pink blanket for Valentines day. They don't get all of these every year, but I hit some of them each year. I do send small gifts on normal holidays, but they are not my big focus. They get way too much stuff on those days, which is all lost in the crowd.

At first I sent letters and drawing as well at other times, but they were a bit too small for this stuff. I intend to resume that practice, as they each turn 5. We tried to do a monthly Saturday event, but it was just too hard with everyone's schedules. I was sad about this, but I do remember what it is like to have a pile of children to juggle. I think it's possible to be in their lives even if I am hundreds of miles away. I love my family and don't want to procrastinate our time away.

Little Sammy called just a bit ago to thank me for the dress I sent. She left a message that went something like this. "Hi Grammy...blugma...dress...ghenkaindn...cute...theiaonkans...thanks...love you...bye." To me this is priceless. By the way she is exceptionally articulate in person.