I had a simply delightful Memorial Day weekend, even if I worked a lot. I'm doing some freelance work for a major financial mag and it involves interviewing a lot of mult-millionaires and writing their profiles. It is time consuming, satisfying, interesting and utterly exhausting. I had my plans made for a long weekend of working and eating little frozen and microwaved bites from the freezer. On Thursday I started wondering what the grandkids were going to be doing for the holiday weekend. I was especially wondering about that little brown eyed girl who lives in the same city as I do. When her mom called early Thursday evening, I was glad to hear she was wondering what I was gonna be doing as well.

I drove over and got her that very evening. Plans were for her to hang with me over the entire weekend, so her mom could get lots done. That was fine with me. This kid is one of the easiest kids ever to have in the house, even when you are working. She is literally never bored and if she has a moment when boredom might sneak in, she grabs a pencil and starts drawing and creating. In one of those moments I saw her working madly over on her little table and not too long after that, she handed me a greeting card that was colored with her scented crayons. When I opened it, it said in big letters I Love you!! Those words will melt a grandma's heart completely. I feel even more blessed that this particular little grandkiddy didn't even know me until two years ago.

We watched lots of movies this weekend. I introduced her to the delights of the original Parent Trap. She loved it completely. I couldn't believe the physical violence in that version. It seemed like nothing when it was first released, but now it would be politically incorrect in so many ways. The other movies we enjoyed together were Swiss Family Robinson and Pollyanna. I think I've got me a fellow Hayley Mills fan going in this girl. She also liked my stories of wanting to go to summer camp after seeing Parent Trap as a young girl, and actually getting to go to a very similar camp. To my amazement when I got there, I met a set of tall slender red-headed twins named Collette and Colleen. I was living it that year. My dream had come true! Now she wants to go to summer camp. There's got to be a great summer camp like that somewhere for her. I'll be checking.
On the way to school she started singing the song from that movie, to my utter delight. That used to be my favorite song!!

Last night when I was getting her moving in the direction of her room, she started batting those big brown eyes at me and asking if maybe please couldn't she finish watching her movie in bed. It wasn't all that late yet so I said, "Well, you know I'm just an old softie and when you ask me like that, you know I'm going to say yes." To that she replied, "You're not old! You're young...ish"! I guess being young...ish is better than being old, huh?

Mother's Day will soon be upon us. Every year on Mother's Day a lot of moms stop to think about their children and also the job they did as a mother. Some moms think if they don't hear from their kids on that holiest of days in motherdom that they did a bad job. I myself have wondered that in past years when I don't hear from my kids on Mother's Day. I go back through the years and put myself through the most brutal of analysis. How was I when they were little and sick and needing their mom? For two of them I was not bad on that account. I sat up with them when they were sick. I literally slept on the foot of their beds. I watched their every breath and felt their heads way too often to see if they were too hot or too cold. When they suffered, I suffered.

I can't help at times like that to think of the little one I didn't get to be there for. My heart still aches that I couldn't have been there to bandage his skinned knees, and kiss his hurts to make them better. I know we have each other now and I can be there for him when he wants me to be. I do take comfort in knowing the wonderful woman who was his mommy. She is a gentle soul who I know was there for him during those times. I look at pictures of all of them from his childhood times, and I see the love they all had and have for each other. Pictures where he is lovingly being held and shown things in his environment like a piano or a painting on the wall. Funny how he turned into an artist and musician and he was showing interest in those things as a baby. Bravo for those two wonderful people who did and do give him unconditional love. In some ways he is doubly blessed, because now he has two moms who not only fuss over him, but love him unconditionally. And he has a dad who sees him as a best friend, and a quasi-step dad who thinks the world of him.

As for the two kids I got to raise, I guess I feel I have always been there for them. I have been too hard on them sometimes, expecting them to be the best that they could be. We did a pretty good job with them though. They are good people, productive, smart - wonderful adult people who love their spouses and are conscientious loving parents. At the end of the day, I rest easy with the people they have become, even if there are a few niggling feelings of remorse for the times when I was less than a perfect mom.

Why is it you only figure these things out when it is all in the past and you can't do it over? I know! Because it then qualifies you to be a grandparent!! I don't have many regrets in that department at all. Thank God!