I apologize to all grandparents!

Dear Grandparent friends,

I am so very sorry! Prior to March 10 I would listen (politely)to you talk about your grandkids with a moderate level of interest - and then go about my way. No more - now that I have joined the ranks blessed to be a grandparent i pledge i will listen to your every word. I will stand patiently and look at every photo of dance recitals and soccer games and first birthdays. I get it - really! Our grandkids are not just that tug in our heart they are also our hope for the future.

For them we must do all we can NOW - to make this world a better place. Shame on us for making such a mess - from the air and water, to the economy, to prejudice and ignorance.Lets get our act together - for Audrey, and Allison, and Matt and Noah etc, etc.

Life changing event!

I am in day 8 of a life changing, future altering, perspective defining moment! Starting March 8 our daughter and her husband went in to the hospital to deliver their first child-our first grandchild. On Tuesday morning at 12:11 AM we joyously welcomed Audrey Jane into our lives - and the world has looked different ever since then!

I don't have the vocabulary to adequately describe the various waves of emotion I have experienced over the last couple of days.

In the days leading up to Audrey's birth I could not describe my feelings without choking up. As I thought about my "little girl" giving birth I just melted. She has been through so much, including some very serious health challenges, there were days we thought this experience might not come her way. I wanted to do what I could so she would not have to go through that pain.

I am so very proud of my daughter - she labored long and hard to deliver a robust 9 lb 3oz daughter. Even when it looked like a c-section was required she and her great Dr worked some amazing mid-wife miracles enabling a c-section to be avoided and our granddaughter to be delivered swiftly. Her husband was by her side the entire time, offering words of encouragment and love -he never waivered in his focus and support.

amazing-life altering-indescribable!

how do you feel when your daughter is about to have a baby!

it is an interesting place to be...waiting for your daughter to have a baby...
some days I am scared for her...i want to be able to take the pain away...i want to carry some of it myself..to lessen it for her.

Some days i get a little worried about the baby - will he/she be healthy? I realize we will face that fact soon enough - so i tend to not dwell on that for long.

Then there are days i that i feel overwhelmed with this renewed sense of urgency for our world...I want us to get things straightened out so these kids will have fresh air to breathe and clean water to drink, and I want wars to stop and ...and...

and some days i just tear up...

How do babies get here?

It is about to happen - the stork is about to deliver our very first grandchild!

Even though they look frail and delicate - rumor has it the stork is known to deliver babies all the way up to 10+ lbs! Amazing!

Anyone know how in the world the stork delivery story got started? Did some parent long ago just panic?

From Wikipedia:

In Western culture the White Stork is a symbol of childbirth. In Victorian times the details of human reproduction were difficult to approach, especially in reply to a younger child's query of "Where did I come from?"; "The stork brought you to us" was the tactic used to avoid discussion of sex.[citation needed] This habit was derived from the once popular superstition that storks were the harbingers of happiness and prosperity, and possibly from the habit of some storks of nesting atop chimneys, down which the new baby could be imagined as entering the house.

The image of a stork bearing an infant wrapped in a sling held in its beak is common in popular culture. The small pink or reddish patches often found on a newborn child's eyelids, between the eyes, on the upper lip, and on the nape of the neck are sometimes still called "stork bites". In fact they are clusters of developing veins that often soon fade.

The stork's folkloric role as a bringer of babies and harbinger of luck and prosperity may originate from the Netherlands and Northern Germany, where it is common in children's nursery stories.