Not all it's cracked up to be...

When our children were young, our parents did not have time to take care of them or see them very often because they had their own careers. This made my husband and I sad because we knew that there would need to be time with their grandparents for our kids to get to know their grandparents.
My husband had great grandparents growing up. His grandparents would take care of him and his two brothers about every week end. And they even took the boys on vacation with them. I credit his Grandparents for a big part making him the man he is today. I grew up in many different towns and states - rarely any where near my grandparents so I really did not get a chance to really get to know them. I still loved them a lot but I really missed out on spending time with them and us really getting to know each other.
Because of all of this We decided that we would be good grandparents. We would not be to busy to see or take care of our grandchildren. We would be a part of their lives. We would get to know them. This past January, our first grandchild was born. We were so excited. The love in our hearts was so big it was spilling out. I realized for the first time what unconditional love really was. Nothing could make me not love her.
Our Granddaughter is now 2 months old. She lives about 2 miles from us. So you are thinking - you get to see her all the time...no. No we don't get to see her hardly at all. You ask why? Well because we know that they are a new little family and they do not need us just dropping by all the time. We don't want to over step our boundaries. We want to have a good relationship with our son and daughter-in-law. We have tried to have dinner and invite them over, and that seems to work pretty good. But it is just so hard to go a week and a half - two weeks without seeing her. It causes you to want to build up walls inside your heart so it does not hurt so much.
And truth be told - if we were not dealing with a lot of other hurts right now - this probably would not be so painful. My husband has Parkinson's - we have only known about it for 6 months. Oh and by the way he was only 39 years old when he was diagnosed. Anyway that has been so hard to accept. He is having to take meds. for different symptoms he is having. For 6-7 years he was a voluntary fire fighter for a small town nearby. He loved to drive the engines, be an engineer and fight fires. But just this past week he had to resign because of the meds he is taking. I am very sure that this has been very hard for him. He tries so hard not to let it show that he is hurting. He tries to be strong for me. But I know. So like I said our feelings are a little raw right now. And it makes it so much harder to accept that being a grandparent is not what it is cracked up to be. This is why it is so important to remember that it is not good to have expectations. When you have expectations - you are let down. So lower those expectations - it sure makes life easier to handle.