Grandma’s House

Where cousins meet to become friends.

As a family, we celebrate holidays, birthdays and other occasions together. We believe in strong family bonds and enjoy the blessing of having all of our eleven grandchildren live within ten minutes of us. We love each of them and their unique personalities and enjoy being with them collectively, alone and with their own family groups. But I recently had an idea that I acted upon recently.

I gathered my six granddaughters ranging from ages 15-7 to meet for a special meeting at my home. As we enjoyed pizza, I told them we were forming a club with just me, their grandmother, and them! This time, no moms were invited. This will be a time when only seven of us will meet and create some memories. We voted on what we wanted to do as a group and what our club’s name would be. I reminded them of the profound experience I had many years ago that inspired my Celebration of Life concept and the book I have written and told them how blessed I feel to be living a healthy life so that I can enjoy them and their activities. Thirteen years ago my world was shaken and I wasn’t certain of my future.

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Prior to our first official club meeting I had some of them help me with a service project for my mother, their great grandmother. In the future, we will create opportunities to serve others as a club. We drew names and I asked them to look out for that cousin (I included my name in the drawing) and to find ways to support and get to know that person better. What better way to keep connected to each other? We will draw new names next time we meet and repeat the process. If they lived out of town or out of state, I would have introduced the old fashioned concept of “pen pals” and encouraged them to write to the cousin whose name they have.

Although they see each other often, I envision that this club will create even stronger bonds and insure they will always know they have cousin-friends that are ‘true blue’ to them no matter what. When other friends ebb in and out of their lives they will know they always have friends in our club. In the tumultuous adolescent and teen years, we all need the reassurance that we belong and are valued. If, on those days when their hormones are raging and they may feel like they do not matter to anyone else, they will always be assured that they matter and are important to our exclusive club. I also am confidnet this will create a new dimension of a friendship bond within our family. I know that the younger ones already look up to the older cousins, but imagine how fun it will be when they teach each other life skills. In addition, the younger girls can use their older cousins as role models. Older girls can teach the younger ones. One of my first plans is to have a manners lesson, taught by the older granddaughters. My mind is reeling with the possibilities for future activities.

I am confident I will learn a great deal about what is going on in the lives and minds of my granddaughters. I will glean ideas about how to better live my life from them. This new connection will enhance and bless my life in multiple ways.

Just now, one of my ten year old granddaughters texted me to see if we, as a club, were going to meet today to celebrate two of her female cousin’s birthdays. Two of these grand-darlings were born on the same day! Never mind that we celebrated as a family last night. She wanted to know if our club was going to get together and celebrate with them today. That’s the spirit, Samantha!

I cannot leave my precious grandsons out of the fun. So my grandsons and I had a little meeting the following day to plan what we are going to do as our own unique grandmother/grandsons club…My 14 year old grandson was not in attendance when we formed this little group. I informed him that he is part of this group and asked if he was excited. His reply: “Oh yeah”. Being older and involved in more teenage activities, he will still be a good sport and, as in the past, a great example to his younger brothers and cousins in “the club”. Stay tuned for details about my newest club!

Oh, and if you are wondering what the names of our clubs are, I will let you in on our insider information.

My club with my granddaughters is: “Babe-alicious Grand Chikas”! Don’t you love it? That describes us well I think. Thanks for the suggestion, Victoria!

The club with my grandsons is “Gaylen’s (my husband’s name) Grand-Guys”. Who knows, we might allow Grandpa Gaylen to join since it carries his name!

I had better close this blog post and rest up for the upcoming activities with these new clubs! Besides that, I am going to go do something special for the name I drew!