In terms of children, there’s not a whole lot that bothers or scares me.  I’ve raised three boys and I’ve taught school for 27 years.  There have literally been thousands of kids in my life and in my school environment, where at the very least I control the parameters of what they do, there are very few surprises.

In terms of relationships, I think I’ve been an okay wife, sister, mom, aunt.  Not great, but okay and as to how good a daughter I was, well the jury is still out.  But now I have this new relationship with a smart, funny, energetic red headed boy who considers me grandma.  I had the chance to watch him overnight while my son and daughter in law were busy and it was the usual stuff.  We ate fast food, went to a movie, watched him play video games, watched him get the flu – all things that I can deal with.  I’m good at the “doing” thing.  I do it all the time – ha!  When he got sick last night I kicked into take charge mom mode because that’s what I do.  But this morning, after he finished playing video games, he looked at me and said, I want to do an activity.  I asked, what kind of activity?  He said, I don’t know, something crafty.  Grandmas are supposed to do crafty things.  That scared me.

I’m going to share with you, as most of my friends know, that I am totally craft impaired.  I mean seriously.  Like any Pinterest fail you would ever see would be me.  I don’t make things, I don’t knit, I don’t sew, I don’t do art (unless you want something that looks like a five year old did it.).  I have no hobbies to speak of, other than this blog and I’m not sure that passes for a grandma craft.  The closest I had were coloring pages and colored pencils.  But according to my little red head, grandmas do crafty things.

Pretty sure if you’re going to be a crafty grandma you needed to be a crafty mom.  Or at the very least be able to do something with your hands.  However, even when it came to baking, this mom on occasion would make slice and bake cookies, or better yet, those Toll House cookies that come in the squares that you just set on a cookie sheet and they actually come out like cookies! I didn’t do crafts on rainy days or snow days, and I only recently began going to craft stores where, to be honest, if I don’t have something specific to get, I’m lost.  The last time I went I bought some blue yarn.  The lady at the register asked me what I was going to make and I told her I was going to cut lengths of the yarn for my elementary kids to use to demonstrate melodic contour on the floor.  The drawn out “okaaay” said everything.  Obviously I wasn’t using the material for what it was meant to be used for.

Now, if this kid would like to word smith a mission and vision statement or put together a leadership conference, I’m there.  I will never be the knitting/baking cookies kind of grandma as I was never that type of mom.  Sometimes I think I would like to be, but it’s just not my thing.  I would actually love to be the Auntie Mame kind of grandma, the one who takes the grandkid on great adventures to see and do new things.  That’s a bit more up my alley.  I can see myself taking him to movies or to play miniature golf or bowling or hitting balls in the batting cage.  I could see picnics in the park or taking a trip to the beach or visiting a museum,  but I should probably stay away from a glue gun because more than one of us would get hurt.

As I told my little red head this morning, I’m new at this grandma thing and it’s going to take me a while to figure it out.  What I HAVE figured out is that I just have to remain me while making sure he knows I love him and care about him, despite the fact that I’m not a crafty grandma.