My First Granddaughter

The telephone rang. It was my son asking if I could pick up my grandson and keep him over night. Of course I could. The catch was that I needed to pick him up at the hospital. WHAT?

My daughter-in-law had fainted so my son took her to the hospital. I jokingly asked if she was pregnant because my grandson had just celebrated his first birthday. My son told me that was what they suspected.

That was how we all found out there was to be another addition to the family.

The last month before my granddaughter was born was hard on my daughter-in-law. She felt like all of us do that final month. She just wanted it to be over.

As was my daily ritual I called her one morning. "Hello?" I said, "Hello" back. We exchanged pleasantries. Then she said, "If one more person asks me how I'm feeling, I am going to scream." I told her I completely understood. I am very understanding that way. Then I said, "So how are you feeling?"

When the day finally came I got a call from my son. It was early in the morning, very early. When I arrived at the hospital, my daughter-in-law's mother, step-father, and sister were there already. I do not remember who was taking care of my grandson that day because we were all there.

My beautiful granddaughter was here. She was a beautiful baby and my son was in love.

According to my daughter-in-law the baby was always crying. I did not see that but I was not there all the time. She was always happy when her father was there. She was and is a daddy's girl.

My son came home from work and the first thing he did was to get on the floor and wrestle with my grandson. Now that he had a daughter she became a part of the wrestling matches. She loved it and can hold her own with the best of them.

When she was about two years old my granddaughter started having terrible nightmares. They usually happened during her afternoon nap. When she woke up screaming nothing would calm her down until she could talk to her father. Luckily at that time he worked at a job where he answered the phone. Several times a week he would get the call and have to talk to his daughter. She seemed just fine after hearing her daddy's voice.

Potty training was a fun thing. Actually she was easy to train because she does not like to be messy. And she was not shy in the least. She would haul her little potty seat in and watch television with the reat of us while she did what needed to be done.

The only problem was the clean-up after. She would stand up then bend over and grab her ankles and ask for someone to do it for her. Finally her mother told her that she was big enough to do it for herself.

"I'm not doing that! That's a-scusting!" Like I said she hates being dirty. She did finally start to take care of it herself and I am happy to report that she does not bother us with it any more.

She loved the water. Getting her to take a bath was no problem at all. She just got in the tub and pretended to swim. For her fourth birthday my daughter bought her a swimming pool for the back yard so she could swim to her heart's content.

My granddaughter is very athletic. Not unusual considering that both her parents and her brother are too. She began on my grandson's little league team when she was three or four. Her parent's were coaching so it made it easier to care for her too.

She has played soccer, basketball, volleyball, and tennis on her school teams. She also ran cross country at school. She tried every sport that was available and was good at all of them. But her favorite and the one that she really excelled at was softball.

Her favorite position was first base. I love watching her play there. It is like watching a ballet. When someone throws the ball to her she gracefully puts her glove up and the ball almost magnetically swooshes right in. It is beautiful.

Besides being on the team at school my granddaughter also played on a team during the summer that was coached by her mother. The team needed a catcher so my granddaughter said she would do it. So she catches too. She could throw a runner out at second base while she was still in the catcher's squat. Amazing.

Then the team needed a fill-in pitcher. My granddaughter had never pitched before and did not want to do it. Her mother did not want to use her that way but she was stuck for someone. My granddaughter once again gave it a try. She was good. So good that she became a regular pitcher. She began to pitch for the team at school too.

My granddaughter was so good at pitching that she was often interviewed by the media in her area. She was often in the newspaper, on radio, and occasionally on television. She received a scholarship to college because of her pitching talents.

The last year of high school she was fielding a throw as she was playing first base. She did the splits to keep her foot on the base while reaching for the ball. She felt a pop. It was a ligament in her knee. She did not require surgery but was unable to play for the fall season when she went to college. By the spring season she was fine.

Like most of our family my granddaughter loves rain. We like to out and dance in the rain or just quietly sit on the porch and watch as the rain comes down. I was visiting them one time when my granddaughter came into the house. She said, "Grandma, I smell rain coming. Do you want to come out on the porch with me?" How could I turn down an invitation like that?

Quite by accident I discovered that my granddaughter likes figure skating. I watch it on television often but none of my children cared for it.

I stopped by on my way to work one evening to visit my son and his family. They told me my granddaughter was in her room watching figure skating. I had not realized she liked it. I knocked on her door and we watched for a while before I absolutely had to leave.

Another thing we both liked was Grease. We have seen the movie numerous times. We also attended the play whenever it came to town. Each play is done differently so it is an experience. We even saw Frankie Avalon the year he toured with the play.

With our love for figure skating and our love for Grease we kept busy. One evening after attending Disney on Ice starring Nancy Kerrigan we were discussing what we had just seen. Then we decided that Grease would adapt well to an ice program. It was an exciting thought.

It was Christmas Eve. Our family was together at my house as it should be. Everyone was having a great time as usual. My granddaughter and I were given small gifts that needed to be opened at the same time. We got tickets to Grease on Ice! The day after we had the conversation about it my daughter-in-law heard on the radio that it was coming to town so she rushed out and bought the tickets.

Her mother enrolled my granddaughter in a dance class. She was quite small and looked so cute. At her first recital she was with two other children who were as young as she was. One was the son of the instructor and the other was another little girl. They did a number based on Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm to the song Let the Sun Shine In. Adorable.

She danced for five years. The fifth year she did not want to do it any more. Her mother insisted. Finally her father came up with a compromise. If she would complete the five years her mother would let her quit. That ended her dancing career.

So my granddaughter graduated from college with a degree in psychology and a minor in criminology. She has a good job. She also just gave birth to my first great-granddaughter. She is just as pretty as her mother.