STORY TOOLS

• E-mail story
• iPod friendly
• Printer friendly

Tell us about it

• What would you add to this story? Tell us what we missed.
• Do you have photos from this event? Documents we need to see? Share with us.
• Upload photos & videos
• More ways to get your stuff online and in the paper.

More All

• Best of etc: celebrating 2008
• Big names, crowds come to Off the Hook Comedy Club
• Words of Wisdom: The origin of originality

Share and Enjoy [?]

The window of opportunity for hugging and kissing your grandchildren is pretty short. It lasts about 13 years, or until the onset of puberty.

Before that grandparenting is an uncomplicated joy. You visit the children, they visit you, you delight in them and they adore you, unconditionally. They captivate your heart and give you all their attention, and take all yours in return.

But far too soon this ideal love affair comes to a crashing end. Grandparents find themselves replaced.

They lose interest in the pleasures of being a grandchild. The relationship changes. It turns into something very different from the joys of grandparenting known during those early childhood years. We may not like the changes but we have to recognize that our darling grandchildren are doing what comes naturally, darn it.

There's no way to get around the reality of kids growing up. Once our grandchildren enter those angst-ridden teenage years, they turn their interests away from us ever-loving elders to their peers and pals.

It's not just their friends who have made us into second-class relatives. Computers and I-Pods grab their attention as well. Once this change takes place, wise grandparents must learn to become like wallflowers, almost invisible, and wait patiently for this stage in their lives to pass.

As parents we've been there and done that, so we are optimistic that this too shall pass. They will return to their sweet, pleasant, playful selves once their body chemistry rights itself and they become adults.

However, we're not wholly convinced that we'll still be around when that happens. "Ay, there's the rub," as Shakespeare would write.

But there's no way around it. Once a youngster's hormones start popping, grandparents (and to a large extent parents) become dispensable or, if nothing else, are taken for granted. Those once cherubic creatures we fell madly in love with do change.

Unlike caterpillars that turn into butterflies, or ugly ducklings that evolve into swans, our little ones become teenagers. This is something grandparents never think about when they fall in love with a baby grandchild.

TJ was our first grandchild. If there's anything more thrilling than holding your first grandchild in your arms, I haven't heard about it.

TJ had a difficult first month of life and we almost lost him. The fact that he was our first grandchild and the fact that he had to struggle to live combined to make him especially dear to our hearts. His survival was one of those modern medical miracles we tend to ignore.

Only a few years before his birth, his physical problem would have meant certain death. Timing and place is everything. This is a phrase that repeats itself all through our lives: we tend to call it "luck."

Grandparents, as my friends all admit, go soft in the head right after their first grandchild is born. Within minutes of holding these wonderful little people, we're putty in their tiny hands.

The saying, "If we knew how wonderful it was to be a grandparent we would have done that first" is a truism. That is, until your beloved grandchild enters his teen years. Then, you want to skip to the next phase faster than a speeding bullet.

Next week our teenage darling, who has turned into an alien from outer space, will be visiting us for the rest of his summer vacation. I'm counting on his grandfather, who writes novels set in other worlds, to make our alien visitor feel at home.

Earthwise, we're preparing our selves for TJ's arrival by following the teenage cartoon character, Zits. We figure that only humor can get us through the next several weeks with smiles on our faces.

Let's hope we can elicit some smiles from our visitor as well.