O-mama - Opinionated Moms

It’s Sunday afternoon and I am recuperating from six grandchildren being in my care almost all the time from Wednesday afternoon through Saturday noon.  What a lively time!

The two Ohio grandsons arrived Wednesday and the four others came over with their parents for food, fellowship, and fun until bedtime.  Thursday morning we went over to Noah’s and Aaron’s house in a nearby town for lunch, swimming and trampoline fun.     

Thursday evening they all packed up their tents and camping gear for a camp out down by the pond in the woods ~ supervised by Grandpa.  (Granny does not like chiggers, mosquitoes, and bull frogs!)  The millions of frogs (according to the Super Six) sang a croaking symphony through out the night making sleeping a bit fitful, when they were trying to sleep, which was not often according to reports I heard.

One grandson, Christian who is already 15 years old, roamed through the woods about 1:00 in the morning and found some very small hollow limbs or twigs and carved a flute or recorder, making the appropriate holes, which his sister was able to play at breakfast time on Friday around the morning fire!  I was very impressed.  (My grandchildren are so smart and talented!)

Two brothers (8 and 10) got into a squabble near lunch time and got scolded by their grandfather.  I was not impressed by the news of this episode, but stayed calm and loving with a few words of appropriate behavior at “Granny Camp”.  But they were friends once more when we went swimming again that afternoon.

As a result of that fall out and one other item of my discontent, I devised four rules for “Granny Camp” as one of my daughters-in-law calls this yearly event.  The four rules are easily remembered by Four T’s:

NO ~

• Touching in anger
• Tattletales 
• Trash Talk (none yet, but just in case)

AND ALWAYS SAY ~

• Thank you

I imagine you have heard, “If I had known grandchildren would be so much fun, I would have had them first.”  Well, I’m tempted to say that too!  My three sons are the best. But now I have “matured” in my “old” age and don’t have a work schedule to adhere to, so I have much more to offer my grandchildren.  I’m sure some of you grandmothers feel the same way.  

Children need to know they are loved unconditionally and at the same time they need appropriate correction.  They need encouragement to explore, to learn, and to respect others and their property, to learn there are consequences to chosen decisions and actions; and all the other things that help them grow up to be the human beings that make for a better world.  I’m glad I can contribute to that.

It starts at home with O-MaMa’s and GrannyO-MaMa’s too!