We've all seen the ads and articles that come around this time of year - What Mom Really Wants for Mother's Day. Well, since grandmas are mothers too, I thought I'd come up with a list of what grandmas truly want for Mother's Day, and a few things we most decidedly do not want.
What We Really Don't Want:
1. A store-bought card that the child supposedly picked out. Meh, it's okay, but I like hand-drawn better, even if it's just a couple of marks from a crayon.
2. Chocolates. Maybe it's just me, but I'm not a huge chocolate fan, and they'll just sit around the house. Now, if it were a gift certificate for my favorite Italian restaurant, that would be great. Garlic bread is much better in my book than chocolates.
3. Cut flowers. Something I could actually plant in the garden would be much better, since I can enjoy it for a lot longer.
What We Really Like:
1. Sidewalk chalk decorations for our home. We've been enjoying a chalk ant-town that our older girls made for us a couple of weeks ago. It's on the back patio, and I've been carefully stepping over the ant Walmart (with drive-thru window for easy ant prescription pickup) for multiple days now. Love, love, love it. The girls spent quite a bit of time on this, and we sure have enjoyed it.
2. Saying Grandma. The baby's been saying Papa for a month or so now, and it would be wonderful if she could say Grandma too. A little intensive language instruction would be wonderful. Maybe I'll try Skyping with her and just repeating it over and over while her mom's in the shower.
3. Time. April's been a busy month for us, as the older girl's mom has been out of town, so we've been doing lots of extra kid care. What I've really enjoyed the most has been picking up the girls most every day after school. I get to talk to them about their days, maybe stop by the library, and just spend quality time. We've often said that in an ideal world, we'd get about an hour a day to just spend with the grandkids. I'll miss the school pickups.
4. An iPad. Okay, just throwing that one in there. Even grandmas like gadgets.
So, in summary, store-bought cards, chocolates, cut flowers, bad. Things grandkids actually do, plus iPads, good. Now you know.