What happens when Nana and Papa acquire more than a dozen grandkids over the course of 20 years? We morph into Super Nana and Papa, of course. How does one get the designation of Super added to their titles? It ain't easy but I'll tell ya; it takes a whole lot of time and energy. This leads to a plethora of expectations that we're finding very hard to maintain as the years roll by. Our bodies shout, "NO, you cannot do those things anymore!" while our grandkids holler, "Nana, Papa can you (fill in the blank)?" Who are we to let the little tykes down? We have a reputation to maintain after all.
When we're home alone, it's like Superman or Batman taking off their costumes, plopping into their favorite chairs, grabbing a drink, and vegging out in front of the television, unrecognizable in their civilian trappings. But we want to maintain the facade of our superpowers a little bit longer so we can't let them see this side of us.
We don't have anyone else to blame but ourselves. It's our own fault for setting the bar too stinkin' high in the beginning when our grandbabies started coming and we just couldn't let them down. After all, who doesn't want to be heroes to their grandkids and great-grandsons?
Our grandkids honestly think Nana and Papa sit around the house all day, every day, alone and bored to tears, while we await their Bat Signal call for help or to just spend a few nights. I knew we shouldn't have spoiled them so much.
Don't get me wrong; we love having them all turn to us when they need anything. Really. I wouldn't lie. (Fingers crossed behind my back. Ha. Ha.)
The latest example of our grandkids having extraordinary expectations of our abilities involves our first granddaughter, Mica. She called last week because she is a nursing student and has to purchase a different set of scrubs depending on what class she's attending and each one has to have a special logo on the shoulder. Instead of paying an exorbitant fee to have it added to her scrubs when she orders she thought, "Hey, Nana has a fancy machine that can do that! I'll ask her!"
This stressed me out because all I've ever done is put their names on Christmas stockings and Halloween bags; things I can easily duplicate if my machine decides to 'eat' the material which I just know it'd do if I tried it on something expensive to replace.
Our daughter-in-law asked me to make her some business cards for her charity store that gives a helping hand to those in need. Again, this would involve using my brain as well as my expensive printer ink and buying the cards for printing. My solution for these last two requests was to give my granddaughter the money to pay for her logo and I found it a lot cheaper to order the business cards online than it would have cost me (in stress) to try and make them.
This is not how we (and by 'we' I mean David) handle everything. David has made, among other things, a bunk bed and two saddle holders for a couple of granddaughters. He has also spent countless hours helping our son restore (at our expense, I might add) his ancient tractor, wire his chicken house, and run water to all the critters they've acquired in the last couple of years.
If we're not making or fixing things, we're attending countless sports activities for all of them. So far, they've been involved in soccer, cheerleading, basketball, baseball, football, softball, track, and volleyball. We still have a couple of boys just getting started so I think we can look forward to many more days and nights of sitting in freezing or sweltering weather while watching them.
I think our grandson Eli should be a youth pastor and/or a reporter. He will ask us a bazillion probing questions about things that are none of his business like what we do all day when he's not around. He's very outgoing, doesn't know a stranger, and doesn't have a shy bone in his body. I very much admire that about him.
Anyway, just so I can have something to report next time he grills me, I've decided to try and fix my cracked iPad screen. Never leave an iPad unattended around boisterous boys. To save a hundred bucks I ordered a kit online for about $17. The jury's still out on how long my patience and sanity will last before I throw more money at it to get it fixed by someone who knows what they're doing.
We may not 'super' but don't tell the grandkids.