Before I signed up for NaBloPoMo I had no idea that such a huge number of Mommy Blogs existed out there. Tonight I’d like to do my part to expand that category by offering my first granny blog post.
I’ve been doing child care for my daughter two days a week since September. Her Dad, my ex, does the other two days. Because I do usually work at my own business seven days a week, I figured I could give myself permission to cut back so I could babysit two days and only work the five other days.
I am glad to help out and I love having my now almost 6 month old grand daughter here, I really do. It’s given me an opportunity to bond with her more closely than I probably would have had I not had this much responsibility for her care. She really knows me and she must like seeing me because she smiles a really big smile in the morning when Mom brings her here. Wins me over every single time. And it’s a good thing, too.
You see, I think I went into this thinking this would be a piece of cake, her being small and relatively immobile initially. I thought I’d have time to just catch up on the internet surfing, fix up my various web sites, get a lot of neglected housework done, and maybe do some redecorating or get those old knitting projects out and finish them up…you know, crazy thoughts like that.
Well, I must have been on some kind of gramma crack or else I was suffering from complete amnesia. Because in the considerable number of years since my kids were little, I completely forgot just how much energy and work is required to take care of an infant full time.
She’s been a remarkably good baby, but, honestly, at the end of two days of babysitting, I am so wiped out that I swear I have to take another day just to recover. I have complained before here about the jewelry making marathons and about what a toll that all takes on my body, but today I am feeling like it is nothing compared to the toll that lugging around a-cranky-teething-baby-who-just-won’t-take-a-nap-even-though-she-is-exhausted takes on a gramma. Add into the mix 30 some years on gramma and a heck of an arthritic knee, and you end up with one tired granny at the end of the day.
And then there are the flashbacks…