Grandchildren

I should have known my boys were nature smart long before I had a name for it. When they were little, our house looked a lot like the Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History. Their pockets were never empty. Rocks. Sticks. Acorns. Milkweed pods. Feathers. Pinecones. Eggshells. Seeds…

I am eager to create a season that will fill my heart and head with pleasant memories that reflect these long, lovely days. For me, the best way to do that is to reach out to friends, neighbors and family and share summer time with them. Here are some of the things that I like to do…

What do stereotypes say about young adults born between 1997 and 2012? What valuable role can grandparents play? To set aside judgment and open up the conversation, they have a key advantage: perspective. They know, for example, that every new generation has, in its own way, been viewed with suspicion by the one that came before it…

If you’re a fan of helping the next generation to get a strong financial start, you may have heard about the new Trump Accounts and wondered: What exactly are they? The name has certainly generated attention, but setting politics aside, you may be wondering about some practical…

Most grandmothers I know carry a quiet question: What is my actual role here? You don’t want to overstep. You don’t want to second-guess your adult children. But you also don’t want to sit on the sidelines of the lives of the people you love most. There’s an answer to that question, and it comes from an unlikely place…

You may remember watching your children or nieces/nephews spend “their” money differently than “your” money? Suddenly, what they asked you to buy, was not what they were willing to spend their own money on, remember that? That always made me chuckle. And now I am seeing the same scenario in our grandchildren…

I still remember the day when our daughter and son-in-law announced that they were having a baby. My husband Rick and I were going to be grandparents! The pregnancy and birth happened in the blink of an eye. We were blessed with a beautiful, bouncing, 8 lb.10 oz. baby boy named Jacob…

My granddaughter is drawn to anything sparkly. If it’s pink or purple – or both – all the better. One afternoon, I set my jewelry box in the middle of the bed. She climbed up next to me, legs tucked under, already reaching. We went through…

If you’ve ever wondered, “We’re close… so why doesn’t my grandchild tell me what’s really going on?” you’re not alone. Many grandparents feel quietly hurt when they learn something important later – through parents…

Are you ready to become a grandparent? Many women look forward to this stage of life and even anxiously prod their children to make it a reality sooner rather than later. In the end, we don’t really have much to say about when the blessed…