I just finished reading a great book for grandmas.  It’s GrandLoving: Making Memories with Your Grandchildren by Sue Johnson, Julie Carlson, and Elizabeth Bower.  I love the design of the title on the cover where the ‘O’ in the word loving is a red heart.  Clever design!

This book is brimming with sage advice and a plethora of activities that you can do with your grandchildren to strengthen your relationship – and that’s what my site here is all about!  These activities will be a breeze to do because they are not expensive nor do they require much effort to prepare for.

At the beginning of the book, they quote If I Had My Child to Raise Over Again by Diane Loormans.  Here are two lines that spoke to my heart.  Read them slowly and ponder them.

(If I had my child to raise over again…)
I would do less correcting and more connecting.
I’d do more hugging and less tugging.

Profound!

I think this poetically explains what grandparents can easily do since they don’t have the direct responsibility for their grandchildren (assuming that they aren’t the legal guardian).  Connect more.  Hug more.  Sound words of advice.

Since my little ‘grandloves’ are so tiny right now, I can’t do very many of the suggested activities.  However, here are two of their ideas that I can start this very minute:

• A grandchild’s journal.  Keep a journal of your feelings about your grandchild.  Write your feelings about when the grandchild’s parents told you they were expecting.  About your feelings of your grandchild’s birth.  About your visits and activities.  Then, on occasion, pull out the journal and share it with your grandchild.  It will be a valuable keepsake when you finally decide to give it to your grandchild to keep.

Like, duh, why didn’t I think of this idea since it was one I had done with my children?  As our children were growing up, I kept a journal in a simple spiral notebook of the things they did or the funny things they said.  Occasionally while our youngest son was in grade school, he liked me to read his journal to him for his bedtime story.  Now, I’m going to keep one for each of my grandchildren so that I can read it to them when they visit.

• Hand tracing.  Trace a grandchild’s hand on a piece of paper.  Place your hand over the tracing of your grandchild’s hand and trace around your hand.  (Boy howdy, that’s a lot of hands here.  Got ‘em all straight?  Good.  Give yourself a hand.)  You will end up with a tracing of a small hand (your grandchild’s) within a larger hand (your hand).  It will be fun to compare sizes of the hands.  Do this activity as your grandchild grows up (maybe around their birthday time).  Keep these drawings alongside the journal so you can pull them both out and share with your grandchild.

When my grandchildren get a wee bit older, I plan on using these two ideas that I got from the book.

• Questions on the stair.  Have the grandchildren sit on the bottom stair.  Ask fun questions.  For each correct answer, grandchildren move up a step.   The first one to reach the top stair is the winner.

• Chase-less Catch. Sew a six-foot long string through a sponge rubber ball (like a Nerf ball).  Thumbtack the end of the string to the top of a door frame.  (You will have a ball hanging on the end of a string.)  Put your grandchild on one side of the ball and you on the other and toss the ball back and forth.  If you miss, no problem.  You don’t have to run and catch it.  (This is good.  Grandmas tire out quickly if they have to chase a ball very much . . .) This is a good activity for grandchildren 18 months to three years old.

Here are other ideas that I really liked: springtime nested treats on page 176, hug tag on page 179, flashlight faces p. 199, and straw symphony p. 216.  (I have tons of stars, exclamation points, and underlined sentences throughout this book to help me quickly locate my favorite ideas.)

I hope this whets your appetite to read the book.  Go now to Amazon.com to get your very own copy!  Or go to Barnes and Noble if you’re so inclined.

Riding public transportation to and from work is always an adventure. Sometimes good. Sometimes bad.  Today’s post ranks under the ‘good.’

Grandma Carolyn sat by me as we rode to work.  She pulled out her book and quietly chuckled.  Then, she held out her bookmark for me to see.  It was divine!  What a colorful, sweet little piggy bookmark that her granddaughter had made for her!

Where did my mind immediately jump to?  Why, sharing her bookmark on this site, of course.  I pulled out my iPhone and snapped a picture.  What a professional picture, huh?  Don’t ya just love the fancy backdrop?  (It’s the backside of the seat in front of us in case you’re a non-UTA bus rider and can’t tell.)

So here are my thoughts.  First, find a picture for your grandchild to color — from a coloring book, off the Internet, hand-drawn by you.  Whatever.  You might want to reduce the size of the picture so it will easily fit inside a book.

Have your grandchild color the picture.  If your grandchildren are readers, have them color a picture for themselves so they can have their very own bookmark.  Then, you can laminate the bookmark as Grandma Carolyn did or simply cover it with clear contact paper.

This would be a great activity to do with grandchildren who live far away.  Send them a package containing the picture, the crayons or markers, and the clear contact paper.  (They will be delighted to receive the package in the mail.)  Include directions on making the bookmark.  Make sure you also have a return envelope with appropriate postage for them to mail their completed bookmark back to you.

It’s a win-win situation. If your grandchildren live close by, this is a fun and easy activity you can share with them.    You add one more layer of love in your relationship with your grandchildren when you do this activity together.

You still ‘win’ with far away grandchildren.  They get a fun package in the mail.  They have a fun project to do. You get a bookmark made by a grandchild.  And, you still add a layer of love in your relationship even though the miles keep you apart.

You could have a ‘follow up’ activity by giving your reading grandchildren a book to use with their bookmark!  You could even take your grandchild with you to the store to let them select which book they would like.

If any of you grandmothers out there do this activity, let me know how it turns out!

Drum roll please. . . . .  The winner of my Give a Gift of a Name contest is:

Susan Adcox

 
 
Congratulations! Susan, if you will send your e-mail address to me at nina at grandma ideas dot com I will give this information to Maura Hanrahan so she can contact you with information as to how you can claim your prize.