I Hope I Get This Grandparenting Thing Right

My daughter and her husband are expecting twins!  Our first grandchildren, and I’m worried.  Oh, the babies are fine.  Expectant mama is fine.  But am I going to make a good grandmother?  There’s room for doubt.  Just look at our dogs.

We never, ever have been able to have one of those dogs that lies around and thumps his tail.  Oh no.  Our dogs launch themselves at us when we come home, they hop like kangaroos, they go mad with delight when the doorbell rings.  The current one yaps his head off, other dogs have gone nutso in their own peculiar ways.  One chased his tail, one wagged his tail like a propeller, one barked down the heating vent because it made a loud echo noise and made us laugh. 

I see young moms with sweet little babies that idly pass the time gazing at their hands, watching the trees blow.  Even moms I know with twins seem to be able to manage keeping their wee ones quiet and peaceable at restaurants.  How do they do that? 

We’ve decided that what we must be doing wrong is paying too much attention to the babies or dogs.  It hasn’t helped that we ourselves go into frenzied yapping whenever we see a baby or dog.  The cry of “BABY ALERT” when my daughters and I are out shopping causes us to react as if we are Labradors and someone has thrown a ball. 

Same thing happens when we see a dog.  “Look at that Bernese Mountain Dog!”  All heads turn, and we pant and yank at our social leashes in order to go pet it. 

I just gotta stop doing that.  I don’t want the babies copying me, and I mean to have orderly, well-conducted little grandbabies.  I’m practicing a slow tempo and calm demeanor.  I’m considering signing up for yoga.  I’m asking everyone for their advice on how they keep their little ones soothed and calm.  My daughter and her husband live close by and I imagine we will be seeing a lot of them. What are your favorite ways to raise quiet children? 

I promise to take all your suggestions under consideration.

But what do I think we are we going to do when our little sweetums arrive?  Talk about little teapots!  I bet I’ll be like a little teapot myself, with steam squealing out of the whistle hole.  Yippee!  “Thar she blows!” the neighbors will say about me as I turn handsprings down the street.  Newspapers will go unread, blogs won’t get written, gardening won’t get done.  And housekeeping?  Forget it!  There are BABIES!  Wheeee!