Popsicles and Popcorn: Reinventing Grandparenthood

My parents are reinventing grandparenthood. My mom doesn't bake cookies; my dad doesn't plant a garden. My mom doesn't sew; my dad doesn't fish. For me, grandparents are listening to made up bedtime stories, riding in the back of the truck, trying on handmade dresses and playing school in a yard swing. Will and Sophie will have very different ideas about grandparents because my parents are reinventing grandparenthood.  

Even their "grandparent names" are different. My dad is Tato, Ukrainian for father and a pet name that Hope gave him, and my mom is Patti-Grams (and often times, just Patti - you could say that she is on a first-name basis with her grandchildren!) For Sophie, grandparents are eating popsicles and popcorn while watching Disney Channel in the bed (or some movie I would not approve of that Tato chooses). To her, grandparents are choosing between Garcia's, PF Chang's, or Famous Dave's and staying up late, sleeping in, and throwing routines out the window. 

Sophie has a freedom of relationship with my parents that she doesn't have with me and I don't have with them. Though the parent-child relationship is maybe the most beautiful on earth, it is also one of the more complex. It is hard to know one another outside of the parent-child context. As I watch the relationship between Sophie and my parents grow, I realize the most important aspect of my parents' reinvention of grandparenthood is that they are allowing her (and Will as he grows) to know them as individuals.

Sophie knows that Patti-Grams loves sugar as much as she does... She knows that Tato loves westerns (shooters, as she calls them)... Sophie knows that Patti-Grams will decorate for every known national holiday... She knows that she and Tato will have popsicles and popcorn every night before bed, and more than likely, fight over sharing the popcorn... Sophie knows that Patti-Grams will always sing "Whole World" to her and may wake her up snoring and that Tato will be silly in the mornings. She knows that Patti-Grams creates memories for our family and that Tato tells people that Jesus loves them. She knows without a doubt that she is loved by both of them.

     Sophie won't be taught how to sew by her granny, but she may learn to shop for bargains from her Patti Grams. She will definitely learn what real love looks like and how to take care    

of children in and outside of our family. Will won't learn to whittle wood from his Papa, but he may be taught to swing a golf club by his Tato. He will definitely learn the importance of true leadership and how to count the cost to defend truth and help hurting people. Sophie and Will may not have many of the stereotypical ideas about grandparents, but they will have real relationships with real people who are further down the road of life than they are. They will have soft places to fall with people who may say the same things as their parents, but say them "with a spoonful of sugar" or at least with popsicles and popcorn...