Friday is Old Picture Day

Our family is counting down the weeks till our new member arrives. A definite discovery I've made as a grandma is that the little baby that will be laying in the crib is going to grow and grow quickly.

I knew this is as a mom, but I know this as a Grandma. Maybe this is because as I get older, time speeds up. Kenz's birth, almost six years ago, came during a nice segment of lifetime. She and I were born together, she into babyhood and me into my second adolescence. Here's some reflections I wrote in the last chapter of my book Play Wit Me Nana!

I have eaten my lunch. I have written my book. The meat is down on the paper. I have moved along through the centers, the segmented lessons of these primary years as a Nana. These final thoughts of this writing find me playing in the sunlight of the playground. The teacher is not here telling me to color, paste, get in the circle, line up or hush up. I am free to dig, slide or run. In this blissful state, I am realizing something profound. I am getting it. I am the one who has been playing. I have been schooled in letting go and letting life happen. In the past few months while my book has been stewing, simmering and being edited by my sister Denise, I have been roasting and baking. My explorations of grandmahood are not done and probably won’t ever be, but I now know something I didn't know while I was ‘cooking’ my story. While Mackenzie has been coaxing me into playing, into participating, into games, into amusement and and into imagination; I have been the one who has learned to play. It’s been good, but what’s been happening over the last two months might be even better. She is spending greater parts of our days together playing alone. She is drawing from her well of ‘inner resources.’
Along with playing alone, she is playing with friends. A whole new part of her personality is blooming this spring, this springtime of four and a half and I might add it’s absolutely beautiful. Yesterday, she practically asked me to go in my room and find something to do, “Nana, your room is messy."

In celebration of the New Pictures I will soon be posting, I have posted some early pictures of Kenz.