At this time, two years ago, my husband and I were preparing for our upcoming wedding and making plans for our new life together. All of my children were gone from home except for my youngest son, who was almost 17 and lived between my home and his dads. For the first time in my life I had freedoms that I hadn't ever really had before since I became a mom when I was still actually a child myself. I wasn't consummed with motherhood duties like I had been for so many years. It was my time for me. Please don't get me wrong here...I LOVE being a mom...being a mother is something that lives at the core of me and I have not one regret over having my children, as young as I was or as busy as it was...it was my whole life. The bottom line is, I had put my time in and now that my youngest didn't need me all the time, I had freedoms to do things I had always wanted to do outside of being "mom".
This was my time and add finding the love of my life to this and I was elated to say the least. We made plans for our life together. I knew then that in two years(which is now)my youngest son would be graduating from high school and that we would be freed up even more to do some of those things we wanted to do. Our wedding came and then I moved into his house...we had so much fun making our home together, which of course included my youngest son.
Three weeks later, my step daughter, who is in her early twenties and already had a 14 month old son, gave birth to our granddaughter. Life as we knew it came to an abrupt end. We were interupted. Neither father of her children was involved so she was completely alone. Now some people would say, she made her bed now she can lie in it. I am not one of those people. These kinds of things have been said to me by people that I loved and in no way, shape or form did these things help me. We did everything we possibly could to help her...to support her...maybe we did too much? I just know that our lives completely stopped at this point from going in the direction of our plans. What started out as helping turned into our having them most of the time...to us having them completely. Talk about total interuption of life.
It was never our intention to be starting over in the "daddy" & "mommy" department. We didn't plan for this. But, here we are anyways. They have totally, completely changed our lives...there is not one thing in my life that is the same. This is one of the hardest things I have ever done. There is no training or manual for things like this...how to parent your grandchildren...how to be mommy to children you didn't give birth to. I am back to page one of mommyhood. I must say that I love these two little ones completely, as if they were my own...I have given birth to them in my heart, just as my husband has. They have blessed our lives. They are so happy, content and loving.
They started calling us daddy and mommy a few months ago out of the blue...we have always addressed ourselves as grandma and grandpa...they are the ones that gave us these blessed names. These little people interupted our lives in a very big way...we are still adjusting, learning, trying to figure all this out...but we are doing it together. This is a team effort of my husband and myself, my youngest son, who is a wonder with these little ones, who have come to love him like he is there big brother, and my daugher & her son, who have since moved in with us, is so awesome with them and also like a big sister to them. The rest of my children, although not here are such a support and the little ones just love them.
Yes, there are days I miss my old new life but I would not trade this for anything. They are my new life now...they are my sweet interuptions!
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