one man's burden is another woman's blessing

We are such a burden.

That's the comment Mike made to me this evening after a flurry of phone calls between Papa's house and our house. Like three in under five minutes. After a horrifically dismal May, business is all of the sudden booming and we have a lot of work coming up in the next six days. Oh and wouldn't you know it, number one employee is out of town. So guess who's been called in to cover his shifts? (If you guessed me, give yourself a pat on the back.) Which is totally fine, but it means a lot of organizing for the kids and Michael left to his own devices will start trying to track down a sitter about 5 minutes after we need to be out the door. So as the business piled up tonight Papa and I tried to figure out who would be where and with who between us. We managed to work things out until Friday and then it's back to the drawing board for the rest of the weekend. It was as I offered up suggestions to Mike for times we were still going to need babysitting that he made the above remark.

It's been said that it takes a village to raise a child. Now to be honest, a whole village isn't necessary to raise a child or even multiple children. There are countless families out there living without family support systems that are managing to produce productive members of society. That's not us, and for that I am grateful. The girl's grandparents are five, ten and thirty minutes away and all have an equal interest in spending time with their granddaughters. Grandma Sandi babysits two days a week. Grandma Linda and Papa, well for the last 5 years they've taken it as a personal insult if we take the kids grocery shopping with us. As for Granny, well goodness knows where she will turn up. She likes to keep us on our toes.

I think it's a fair observation that families have changed a lot in the last 30 years. Grandparents, for example, are younger and more involved then in decades past. No question, Abby and Maya's grandparents are much more intimately involved in their day to day lives then my Grandparents ever were with mine. Which is in no way a knock against them. I had pretty great and loving Grandparents all around. Ones I saw and spent time with regularly, but it was always much more scheduled and structured time. Where as the girls' Grandparents are just part of day to day life. I can tell you there's been more than one occasion I've woken up to find Papa in the house checking on the kids. And that they have bedrooms of "their own" at two other houses.

Mike often sees this as continued dependence on our parents. He feels we should be able to tackle life and any "obstacles" on our own. That we should be grown ups. To that I say, why the hell should we? I am intimately acquainted to the fact that you will lose your parent long before you are ready to and the ensuing years will have you praying for just one more moment. The time is here. The time is now. Seeing our parents grandparent our kids is truly a blessing. All the things that made them great parents make them incredible grandparents. A burden? No sir, this is a gift for all of us.