I think it’s important.
I spent every July with my mother’s parents as I was growing up, and I regret not one minute of it. I never went to camp; I didn’t get a summer job until I graduated high school; my summers at home amongst my friends were shortened by a month.
But I’m so glad for those days I had with my grandparents.
Our children spent about a week with each of their grandparents this summer. They were a week in western PA with their Grandmom and Granddad. And then they were on eastern Long Island with my parents for a little more than that.
And we are lucky to have Bill’s mom within walking distance here in NC, so that the children get to spend lots of time with her.
It’s always amusing to me how their influence shows up. My father, for instance, has singular ways of saying things, and he returned my children to me with some of his phrasing firmly planted in their vocabulary.
Emma Grace was absolutely serious when, as I tucked her into bed, she reported to me that she needed “a little shut-eye.”
And Everett interrupted his bicycle riding on Sunday to get a “slug” of Gatorade.
After school today, Emma Grace told me that she hadn’t been very fast in gym class. No, she reported, she wasn’t very fast. But you know, she told me, “I’m all aches and pains today.”
I’m pretty certain I know which grandparent that last phrase comes from, but I’m not going to tell which one.
