A Busy Granddaughter

I had my 3 boys each about 1-1/2 years apart but that was over 30 years ago. When I had our boys we had just taken over our family farm on Jan 1; our oldest was about 1 year old and our middle born in July. I helped out with tractor driving, laying irrigation pipe, learning how to run the financial end of the business, cooking meals and caring for kids. I was busy all of the time like most working moms. That was then, now is now: kids are grown and gone, farm sold, I work sometimes but am home these days and hubby has a regular job.

Our oldest boy has 3 kids, 2 older kids and then one nearly 2 years old. These days our son and his family are in a transition mode so they have asked if I'd take the little one 2 days a week. I thought that it would be good to spend some time with our little one as I haven't spent the quality time with her as I have had with the other kids. Great idea right?

So yesterday we had our granddaughter from late morning until about 8pm. She ran most of the day, from one thing to the next, chattering, imitating everything we said. Inside to turn on the area heater, out the door to run into her little house, back in to turn off the heater and get more stuff out of the drawers, into the great room to play with her kitchen, back to turn on the heater, off to shake the chinchilla house, back to turn off the heater, more Ziploc bags onto the floor, heater on, out to her play house, and on and on.

I began to wonder how did I take care of 3 little boys and work at our own business plus cook. All I could do with my granddaughter was to chase after her, closing doors, making sure the door didn't scrape her little toes, that she didn't shake the chinchilla, and that she didn't go out the front door.

By the time my son came back I was tired, grabbed a big glass of wine and headed off to bed. And I'm going to do this twice a week? What was I thinking? Well at least I don't need the gym on granddaughter days.