This article by Ray Spitzenberger first appeared in IMAGES, June 16, East Bernard Express, East Bernard, Texas.
Having a third granddaughter in my old age has been quite an exciting event, one that I will probably never stop writing about. My daughter’s baby girl was born in New York in March, and I’ve already written about the special name her parents chose for her, — Sybil, named after the baby’s great aunt who was a kind of icon at Wharton County Junior College, where she and I taught for many years (she longer than I).
Now, faced with the equally exciting probability of daughter and new granddaughter coming to Texas for a visit, my wife and I must shift our thinking back to when our last grandbaby was born, and all the necessary preparations to make the house ready for a baby’s habitation! Our last grandchild was born seventeen years ago. What is required to be the host of a baby’s visit? Well, uh . . . uh . . . A rocking chair? We’ve got two of those (I wore a third one out rocking our first baby to sleep).
That last thought takes me back even further than our first two grandchildren, to the birth of our first child, who is now the aunt of the third granddaughter! I was teaching at Wharton County Junior College in 1975 when the blessed event occurred in the old hospital just a few blocks from the college. Three other junior college teachers had babies within a few days of each other, and I was told the president of the college jokingly asked the other teachers what had gotten into the college drinking water.
Like many couples in those days, my wife and I were into “natural” things, wanting birthing to be natural. So, we had taken classes with other couples in the Lamaze method of childbirth, which taught the birth process to be a natural thing. It was not as easy as the lessons made it sound, but at least I got to be present and watch my daughter be born. A totally exhilarating experience!
We had just returned from a leave of absence to attend graduate school and were absolutely broke! That was the reason, along with our commitment to “natural” things, that we began by using cloth diapers. The kind you had to wash and dry! We didn’t own a washer and dryer, so had to drive to the public washateria. Which required quarters! It didn’t take long for us to realize we couldn’t keep up with the hourly wash load, so the commitment to “natural” things became less and less compelling. And even though we were given the diapers, the quarters weren’t that easy to come by!
So, we switched to disposable diapers, which made living a lot easier, but quite a bit more expensive. We cut back on other things, — like buying only enough decorations to cover one side of our Christmas tree and having no lights on the tree. My mother-in-law felt sorry for us and gave us some secondhand lights and decorations. So, Baby Meg got to see a lighted tree, which delighted her to no end.
Now, two daughters and three granddaughters later, things are much better. Over the years we have collected four beautiful handmade baby quilts, two of which were made by my mother. We have friends, Grandmas and Grandpas, who have lots of baby paraphernalia they’re eager to lend. With my older daughter and two older granddaughters living three blocks from us, we have a lineup of eager “Mommies,” as well as two old grandparents, all champing at the bit to work as rockers, diaper changers, bottle feeders, lullaby singers, children book readers, and huggers!
So just bring on the baby! We’re ready!
-o-
Ray Spitzenberger is a retired Wharton County Junior College teacher, a retired Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod pastor, and author of three books, It Must Be the Noodles, Open Prairies and Tanka Schoen.