PORTLAND, Ore. -- I am starting a new blog to share some of my life with you "off the air." From my new ventures becoming a Grandma, and trying to learn to knit, to my thoughts about life and living in Portland.
And I hope you will join in the conversation with your comments and ideas for future blog topics. So, here's to what I hope is a deeper friendship.
Here's my first entry in "Off The Air" with Laural Porter.
I'm shouting it from the rooftops... "I'm a Grandma!"
The birth of little Eloise (Ella) has changed my life.
Grandparents told me this would happen. They said you are going to love being a part of the "Grandparents Club!" But...I wasn't so sure.
I didn't feel ready for this grandparent thing. It made me feel old. And in the business I'm in, that's not something I was ready to embrace, let alone announce to the world.
When I told colleagues my daughter was expecting her first baby, our first grand child, some of them had fun with it, teasingly calling me, "Granny." I wondered to myself, after the baby is delivered, how long can "Granny" deliver the news?
My wonderful co-workers threw a Grandparents shower for four of us in the newsroom who were new grandparents or soon-to-be.
They made pink and blue cupcakes. Two of us were expecting baby boys, and two baby girls. They wrote their best advice on grand-parenting on a card.
Most were probably remembering their own grandparents, since few of them are even close to "Granny's" age. We posed for pictures of the four new grandparents in the newsroom.
I'd never heard of a grandparents shower. It was so sweet, and I did feel special. Maybe there was something extraordinary to becoming a Grandma after all.
We held a shower for my daughter,Kate, at our house a short time later.
My two other daughters filled the house with pink balloons, a cake made of diapers, and a real cake with pink frosting declaring "Kate's about to pop" across the top.
I joined in one of the games, a relay where you hold a ping pong ball between your legs and waddle across the yard to drop the ball in a bowl. The backyard erupted in hilarity at our running technique supposedly imitating the difficult gait of a pregnant woman "about to pop."
Everyone congratulated me as the "Grandma-to-be." I was getting excited, and so happy for Kate and her husband,Casey, but still anxious about becoming a grandmother.
Then -- the call came.
6:00AM, Friday morning, September 15th.
I'll never forget it. In my mind, the most beautiful late summer day of the year. It was Kate. "Mom, I'm in labor. We're headed to the hospital."
This was it. My heart raced. I jumped out of bed, scurried around to get dressed and put on some makeup. I didn't want "Grandma" to scare the little one at her birth.
I got to the hospital shortly after Kate and Casey. I felt privileged they asked me to be in the delivery room. Eloise made a dramatic entrance into the world. Kate had her an hour and 15 minutes after arriving at the hospital.
Though it was fast, there were some intense moments during the birth, and Casey and I shed tears when we heard Ella cry for the first time!
That's when I found out what this "grandparent thing" really is all about. Something amazing happened. My heart filled with joy. I felt an overwhelming sense of peace.
To watch my daughter give birth to her daughter is an experience not easily put to words. And holding my granddaughter for the first time was heaven-sent.
My Jewish friends have wished me, "Mazel Tov." When I looked up the meaning, it described perfectly what happened to me when Ella was born. "Mazel" is a drip of inspiration from above. We're able to see past the mundane and petty and to sense the deeper truths of life.
Mazel Tov is a blessing, the definition says. "May this drip of inspiration not dissipate, but rather have a positive and lasting effect,that from this event onwards you should live your life with higher consciousness."
So-that's how I experienced becoming part of the "Grandparent Club." My life changed. And I am ready to proudly-- and with much gratitude -- exclaim, "I'm a Grandma!"
