LIVING BY NUMBERS

People have oft written about the importance of numbers in one's life.  The numbers are pretty irrelevant to me as they never seem to fit.  I was passing for twenty one when I was fourteen and being carded when I was thirty,  Becoming a mother for the first time when I was twenty four seemed a real landmark.  Thirty nine years later I became a grandparent to the adult grandchild who, through no effort on my part, is turning me into a great grandparent!  

Finding the real landmarks to getting old is pretty easy.  The first set of babies is thrilling but frightening because that little life is totally your responsibility.  After I brought my first baby home from the hospital, I almost went into shock when I heard a cry and suddenly realized I was not alone in the house and had gone into total denial that I was a mother, alone in the house with this little being whom I needed to keep alive!

Becoming a grandmother was much easier. I just gave out advice (which was totally ignored) and occasionally baby sat to relieve the parents, fed, burped, changed diapers, paced floors and rocked until the parents came back to pick the little darlings up.  As they all grew older I just bought out Toys R Us to keep them out of my things and cleaned up the residue when they left. When they finally were old enough to follow some commands and directions, we talked and I bribed.  Having worked with a behavior therapist for a time, I learned that positive reinforcement was a good thing.  Manipulation is not all bad!

As the grandchildren grew up, the inevitable happened.  They began to think of repeating that draining life cycle of reproduction.  Fine for them, it being a first for them, foolish though it may seem, I was never given a thought as to what it would do to me!  What next, would I be put out on the ice float next winter?  After all, how old can you get and still function?  But wait, I knew a woman who was a grandmother at 32.  She could be a great grandmother at 47 if that pattern kept up.  I may be considerably advanced in years from forty seven but it isn't the number that is important.  For once the label really has no expiration date, one just has to exist.  I can guarantee that I will not fight to hold, feed, burp, diaper change, rock or pace the floor with yet another generation.

Instead, I will marvel at Nature's new creation, check all the parts, and offer my services like the now 8th away from the throne.  I will probably be the last on the babysitter list...as in, "Call when you run out of other bodies who will agree" and will never let on that I will thoroughly enjoy the closeness, never forgetting the adage, 'Whenever you have the urge to have a baby, borrow someone else's and hold it until the urge passes'.