A grandmother by any name would be as sweet

As a grandmother now for four years, I go by the name Yaya, which my first granddaughter Tessa tagged me with. I was trying to get her to say Granna. (I wonder if she knew that Yaya means grandmother in Greek.) Actually what really happened is that, unknown to me and for some unknown reason, Tessa had begun to call her pacifier, which she truly loved, by the name of Yaya, and I thought that she was talking to me! It's funny how our nicknames come about, isn't it?

Though I liked "Yaya" immediately, I've discovered that the name that we call a grandparent doesn't really matter. What matters is the relationship between a grandparent and a grandchild. And of course, these relationships vary as much as there are stars in the sky. And we probably won't know what the relationship means to us until possibly long after it's over.

My own relationship with my three sets of grandparents I have mentioned in another blog post. Even though I only got to see my grandparents once a year, they were important in my life, and one set--one grandfather, in particular--made a world of difference in my life. Why? Because I knew that my Granddaddy Clark loved me. If I didn't feel important to anyone else at that time in my life, I knew that I was important to him.

My daughter Ellen basically did not know her grandparents. John's father died of cancer when I was pregnant with her, and his mother was not well and died soon after Ellen was born. My own parents lived in far-away South Carolina and were not well either. Both of them had died by the time Ellen was six. So inactive in her life were they that she does not remember them. I find that sad for her, for me, and for them. Having active grandparents, whom I could trust with her, would have been a blessing.

Here is Livvy Lara at my house back during the winter. In contrast to her sister's green or hazel eyes and her mother's grey blue eyes, hers turned a dark, dark chocolate brown like her father's. Also in contrast to Tessa's, her hair has been really slow to grow in, but we have noticed that it is really beginning to sprout now that spring has at last arrived! 

There are some definite things in my life that I believe to be God's plan, and one of these is my experience of being a grandmother. I never really gave being a grandmother much thought. Grandmother, like the word retirement, was just not a part of my vocabulary! But my daughter Ellen and my son-in-law Nekos up and decided to move to Nashville just a couple years after college and right after Ellen lost her newspaper job in Knoxville. I never expected their moving here, but of course, I was delighted since Ellen is my only child, and yes, she has been one of the orbits in my life.

This is Tessa last week, dyeing her first Easter eggs. 

So once Nekos and Ellen started their family, I got to be there. I mean really be there from the beginning. When Tessa was about three weeks old and I could hear extreme fatigue in Ellen's voice on the telephone, I said, "Do you need me to come and take her for the night?" To which she replied, "Oh, would you, Mama?" And thus began a weekly overnight visit from Tessa. Sometimes in those first two years, I even got to keep her for several days while Ellen and Nekos went on trips/vacations.

Being the artist that she is, she loved dying the eggs and putting stickers on them! With each visit, art is almost always something that Tessa and I do together.

Then less than three years later, along came Livvy Lara. I said that I would not keep them together! I wanted to appreciate each granddaughter of her own. But now almost 18 months later, what I've been working out is keeping Tessa and Livvy together about every other week and keeping them separately on the other week. That works out well for all of us. I like to see the two sisters interact/play together, but I still get to cherish them one at a time! Ellen and Nekos get a date night every other week, and they get to have one-on-one time with one daughter on the other week. So this arrangement of having one grandchild visit, then two grandchildren together visit, every other week, has been a God-sent for all of us.

Here the girls are at my house this past week.

Tessa is so loving and protective of Livvy.  And Livvy so loves her big sister, following her around and emulating her. (It looks as if my camera focused on big Bisquet in this second picture or else the girls are just really riding that horse!

All of this is not to say that the visiting with me is perfect. I mean it's real. There have been a couple of rough times indeed when I have called and asked Ellen and Nekos to come pick Tessa up (but that's out of over 200 visits!), and there were times when I didn't call them and just endured. (Tessa can be as stubborn as her grandmother when it comes to getting her own way!) And always there is my house getting pretty much wrecked, those stinky diapers to change, loud screams of pleasure and of pain (Tessa is very sensitive to any real or perceived hurts.), and my confusion about how to discipline granddaughters (Most times, I just don't have the energy to discipline anymore. Discipline takes energy--it did as a parent and it did as a teacher!) Then there is my fatigue level.

A sweet though blurry moment, Tessa reading to Livvy.

There that's a better picture.


Of course, I talk more about Tessa because she is four and has been in our lives longer, and I think that I know her better, whereas Livvy is only almost 18 months old. She's just beginning to really talk, instead of grunt. The second child doesn't feel the need to speak words as much as the first because her needs are even more promptly met by her parents and her sister, who tries to speak for her. Having had only one child, it's been interesting for me to note the differences between the first and second child. For one thing, their personalities and temperaments have been quite different.  

This is my baby Ellen with her baby Livvy!

Next month, I look forward to keeping Livvy all by herself for four nights while Ellen, Nekos, and Tessa take a trip to the Outerbanks, North Carolina, with friends. I can already see Ellen running up my walk with happy tears in her eyes when she returns to get Livvy because that's what she used to do with Tessa after being away from her on a trip for several days. Being the mother that she is, Ellen loves her breaks away from her children, but her heart aches for Tessa and Livvy when they are not with her, just as mine does after about a week's absence from them. Who knew?

I know that there too soon will come a time when the girls are in school and busy with their own activities, and they won't have time to come visit me for a full day and night. Then my house will stay in perfect order and the quietude will be a constant, and then I will really miss them.