Meet Debbie, this week's Grilled Grandma

What is a Grilled Grandma? A Grilled Grandma is a grandma whom I've grilled with some grandma-related questions, and she's graciously responded with answers and photos. Here is Grilled Grandma Debbie:

How many children do you have? Two. My daughter Krista is 30, and my son Tim is 26.

How many grandchildren? What are their ages? I have four grandkids, with one on the way. Krista has Sara, 4 1/2, Patrick, 3, and Becca, 1 1/2. Their baby brother, Zachary, is expected in July. Tim is the new father of Benson, born March 20.

Any great grandchildren? No.

What do your grandchildren call you? They call me “Googie,” a nickname invented by my mother when Sara was born.

After the initial elation, what was your first concern upon hearing you would soon be a grandmother? With Krista’s family located first two, and now three, hours away, I was worried that I might not get to be as close to my grandkids as my own children were to their two sets of grandparents.

How often do you get to see your grandchildren? I see Sara, Patrick, and Becca for multiple days about twice a month. Benson lives in my town, so I get to see him more often. I am looking forward to helping care for him next fall when his mama goes back to her teaching job.

What is the best thing about being a grandma? I like the fact that I can enjoy my time with them without other responsibilities. I am retired, so I don’t have to juggle job duties anymore. And I can always clean the house when they go home.

What is the most challenging part of being a grandma? Mastering the fine art of saying good-bye.

Describe a recent time that one (or more) of your grandchildren made you laugh out loud. Patrick loves to act out scenes from stories and movies. He is hilarious as a dog thief from 101 Dalmatians. He has been playing the part of Jasper since he was two, and his facial expressions and British accent make me laugh out loud every time.

What is your favorite thing to do with grandchildren who visit your house? I love to rock them and sing. We have a vast repertoire that includes kid songs, church songs, folk songs, country-western songs, and rock songs from the ‘60s and ‘70s.

What is your favorite thing to do when visiting grandchildren at their house? I always try to take a new book or two when I go to visit. We make a huge dog pile on the couch and read. They also like to show me the books they picked out at the library.

How do you maintain the bond between yourself and your grandchildren between visits? We have always kept in touch by phone, but several months ago we started Skyping. That is a wonderful way to see them and hear their voices when the days between visits stretch out a little too long. They always want me to read them a story while we are on Skype.

What do you most want to pass along to your grandchildren? The sense that they are a vital and much-loved part of our extended family, and a historical record of what their childhood was like through my eyes. That’s why I blog and use my digital camera to take lots of pictures and videos.

What is one word you hope your grandkids think of when they think of you? Fun.

What is one thing you wish you had learned earlier as a grandparent? I wish I had known earlier how much the kids would like PEZ.

What one bit of advice would you give a new grandma? Hit the garage sales for toys, books, and furnishings. You can set your house up as a kid-friendly place for little or nothing that way. Try to buy things that store easily, and, unless you have a whole lot of space, shy away from the really huge, space-consuming playthings.

Do you have a website or blog? What is it about? I began my blog, “Googie’s Attic,” in March, 2011. In it, I record and explore my perspectives on the experiences I am blessed to share with the kids in a way that I hope is insightful and entertaining. You can find it at http://googiesattic.blogspot.com.

This grilling will now be permanently placed in the Grilled Grandmas Hall of Fame—AKA the Grilled Grandma Archives—under Grilled Grandma: Debbie.

Dear Readers: If you'd like to nominate a grandma for grilling—yourself or any other grandma—please e-mail me her first name and e-mail address and I'll take care of the rest. Thank you!

Grandma guilt strikes again

Through the 20+ years I spent raising my three daughters, guilt was an emotion I wore reluctantly yet often. Daily, in fact. Obsessively. The list of things I—and other mothers, surely—had to feel guilty about was endless.

Did I nurse long enough? Too long? Eat correctly to make the best breastmilk I could? Oh, I should not have had that beer...or the second one. Did I start them in school too early? Too late? Help them enough with their homework? Or too much? And the clothes, the cool and expensive clothes I couldn't afford! I surely damaaged their self esteem making them wear hand-me-downs. Or rag rollers—that made such adorable hairstyles!—the night before special occasions. Or homemade Halloween costumes instead of the fancy store-bought kind donned by their friends. And I didn't sign up often enough as class party mom. And I made them stop trick-or-treating before their friends did...well, at least poor Brianna, the one we practiced parenting on. Sheesh, the ways we messed up that girl. Well, all the girls because we had them so close together...and we were so broke...and I was so strict. But they did get to have pagers. But it wasn't cell phones...or iPads or even computers. MAN! We didn't have a computer until they were in junior high, and then I rarely let them on it without demanding they spend time with Mavis Beacon to practice their typing before they were allowed to play VidGrid. VidGrid? Oh, yeah, I surely warped them letting them watch music videos. Well, in the later years, that is, because I had the parental lock on MTV when they were younger. Was that right to do? And was it right to make them be home for dinner every single night? Go out for at least one sport per school year? Get a job at 16? But not be allowed to work on Sundays because they had to go to church and be there for Sunday dinner? We made them pay for their car insurance, but we didn't pay for driving lessons. Oh, I just KNOW it warped them in some way for me to teach them to drive for the first time in the cemetery. But at least they couldn't kill anyone there. How horrible of me to say that...in front of them. And how horrible to demand they go to college for AT LEAST one semester before deciding if college was or was not for them. Maybe they weren't cut out for college? Maybe the student loan debt was too much for them. Maybe I was too much for them.

I know the guilt was too much for me. Patience and energy and money are all easily exhausted for parents, but guilt? Guilt continues to grow and multiply and take over one's days. At least a mom's days—and nights, feeling guilty about all those things we may have forgotten to feel guilty about during the day.

Thankfully those guilt-ridden mommy days and nights are over for me. And, fortunately, guilt-ridden isn't a defining trait of the grandma gig. That's not to say it's non-existent, though. The past couple weeks I've been faced with a bit of grandma guilt, an especially nagging grandma guilt when it comes to Baby Mac, my second grandson.

Baby Mac will celebrate his first birthday in a couple weeks. The creative invitation designed like a ticket to a baseball game came in the mail over the weekend. Megan has told me of all the bits and pieces going into the baseball-themed affair, and it sounds like it'll be a home run for pleasing ball-loving Baby Mac and entertaining all in attendance.

Thing is, I won't be attending. And I feel horribly guilty about that. Yes, I'm a long-distance grandma so such absences are to be expected. But I was (and am) a long-distance grandma with Bubby, too, and I managed to attend every single one of his birthday celebrations. There have been only three so far, but I was there for them all. Photographed them all. Sang "Happy Birthday" to my grandson at all.

But I won't be doing that for Baby Mac. Because he—and his brother—will be visiting my house for an extended stay just a few weeks after his birthday. So it's silly to pay the money to fly 815 miles to the desert to sing Happy Birthday, eat some cake, take some photos. We'll just have a second party at Gramma and PawDad's when the boys arrive for their visit.

Actually, we'll have two birthday parties when the boys visit in June, because Bubby's birthday is mere days before the boys come to the mountains, so we'll have one for him, too. We have a fun activities planned: one will include a dinosaur museum visit; one will feature a visit to my sister's ranch so the boys can ride Shetland ponies. Aunt B and Aunt Andie will get to attend. It will be awesome.

But I still feel guilty. For not attending my second grandson's very first birthday party. Well, and for not attending my first grandson's fourth birthday party. Their real parties. The ones Mom has planned for both boys. At their own home, with their own friends.

Grandma guilt. There's nothing worse.

Except, of course, mommy guilt.

Today's question:

How does grandma guilt compare to mommy guilt in your life?

Introducing GRAND Social — A linky for grandparent bloggers

My friend and fellow grandma blogger Connie recently started a linky called Say It Saturday on her Family Home and Life blog. For those who don't know what a linky is, it's a feature that invites other bloggers to add blog post links related to a particular topic, and Connie's chosen topic is anything related to grandparenting.

Connie's hope with the SIS feature is to help create a network for fellow grandparent bloggers. Right away Connie had several grandma bloggers posting their links, myself included. Funny thing is, although I've been a grandma blogger for nearly three years and pretty sure I'd run across most other grandma bloggers, Connie's linky revealed a few I had never even heard of. I was delighted to click on their links, visit their blogs, and make new friends.

As the grandparent-only linky was clearly a great way to meet other grandma bloggers and drive traffic to one's blog, Connie emailed me the other day to ask why I don't do a linky on my blog. I didn't have a good answer. Her question got me thinking, though...and researching. Ultimately, it inspired me to try it out.

My intention with featuring a weekly linky on Grandma's Briefs is, like Connie, to help develop and encourage a network of grandparents online, a grandparent network of both bloggers and non-bloggers. As we all know, there is a strong grandparent presence online, we've just not yet found a way to network with one another the way many other bloggers have (think mommy bloggers and food bloggers). I hope to join Connie in encouraging such networking, connecting.

Let me assure you that having a linky for grandparent bloggers as a regular feature on Grandma's Briefs doesn't leaving out the non-blogging visitors; in fact, the linky will give Grandma's Briefs readers many more (I hope) grandparent blogs to peruse. I'm sure non-bloggers will get as much from this new feature as do the participating bloggers.

So here it is, the debut of GRAND Social, a linky just for grandparent bloggers, to be featured Mondays here on Grandma's Briefs. I'm delighted to have you join me in the venture.

GRAND Social guidelines:

• All grandparent bloggers are invited to add a link. You don't have to blog specifically about grandparenting, you just must be a grandparent who blogs.

• From your blog, copy the direct link to a specific post you want to share, not the link to your blog's home page. The post you share can be new, it can be old, it can be one you feel should have gotten better exposure, it can be one that got more comments than usual and you want to promote it even more. Your choice, so have fun with it.

• Click the blue "Click here to enter" text below the thumbnail photos, then follow the directions to add your post and a thumbnail to the list. (I've gone first as an example.)

• You can add up to three posts, but no duplicates, please, and none you have promoted on a previous GRAND Social linky. (Which obviously shouldn't be a problem this time considering it's the feature's debut.)

• All content must be safe for work and family friendly; I reserve the right to remove links I deem otherwise.

• No contests, giveaways, or Etsy sites, please.

• Adding a mention at the bottom of your linked posts, such as This post has been linked to the GRAND Social blogging event, is appreciated but not required.

• I encourage all readers and participating bloggers to visit the posts others have linked to by clicking on the thumbnail photos. Please comment on those you visit, as that's how we get to know one another, support one another. Feel free to mention you visited directly from their link on GRAND Social.

• The GRAND Social linky is open for new posts through Wednesday evening, so please come back to see those added after your first visit.

Thank you for participating in the inaugural GRAND Social—as a blogger, a reader, or both. And thank you to Connie for encouraging me to give it a shot.

Please leave a comment to let me know what you think of GRAND Social, as a reader and as a blogger. Thank you.