My Granddaughters

By Darcy Thiel

This week I had one of the best weekends of my life. I was totally burned out and exhausted from everything going on around here ,but I came back with my heart full and ready to tackle things again.

I went to Georgia to see my daughter Emily. The occasion? The birth of my granddaughter Sabrina! I couldn’t wait to get my hands on her. I could tell from the pictures I received thatshe is utterly perfect and the wait to go was torture.

Miss Sabrina, like most newborns, was not sleeping through the night. In fact, she was eating every 90 minutes, even though she is formula fed. Emily was as exhausted and burned out as I was. I got to spend the last couple of nights with Sabrina in the same room with me so I could get up with her. We discovered using a pacifier would hold her off and then she would eat more when it was time. One night she actually slept five hours!

I need lots of sleep. A good night for me is eight to ten hours. While I was there, I didn’t get much more than four hours of sleep and it didn’t even matter. I decided after spending the first night with her cuddled up on my chest for most of it that we were bonded for life.

But I got much more than I bargained for. Emily’s partner has five children. I discovered all of them were going to be there for the weekend as well. Before 24 hours was over, the younger ones were calling me Grammy. I couldn’t help but look around their beautiful house and remember that when I was young, this what I had envisioned for myself. It’s not what happened, but this is happening now and it’s beyond lovely.

The dad would tell the girls to go chill out and give me a break. I told him that I live with all boys who hang out upstairs and don’t think it’s cool to be with me. I am often very lonely. I was loving having them fighting over my attention. I didn’t need a break!

They had to take turns, but I got my hair done, my make-up put on, and had several different nail creations. I’m not used to girls! Emily just kept telling me how brave I was. It’s true, some of the end results were a bit frightening. I decided when the bright red wouldn’t come off my nails, that I would show them off proudly as the sign of a good grammy.

My sister and her family even came up from Tennessee for a night. That night there were nine kids! And my great-nephew is unbelievably cute. What a weekend it was. I came back and went directly to rehab to find my dad doing incredibly well. He looks like himself, is smiling and joking. We are talking about discharge next week!

Talk about blessed. What a week!