Being one of the lucky parents that has the title ‘Grandma’: in my case I am called “Nanma” is a wonderful feeling, knowing that you have had children yourself to enable the status of being a Grandma is so very special.
When I lived in Sydney I could see my two grandsons by just driving 2 hours north to Newcastle, but now residing on the Mid North Coast it is less often. So I have become a distance Nanma.
I remember one of my last trip to see the grandsons, when early one morning, actually too early like 6am, Matthew, the youngest, came into my bedroom thinking that Nanma would be a good ‘push over’ he asked: “Nanma can I have some chips before breakfast?” He was wrong!
After breakfast it was a coaxing job, this time to get him dressed timely enough for his swimming lessons. My goodness, bribes, gently to hostile persuading was hard going for my daughter, but we managed to get there.
The main task was to get him into the water with the coach and to do something that resembled swimming, which was amazing to witness. He tried every trick known to man to convince the coach that he did not need to swim and that getting his face wet was not part of the arrangement.
It took every bit of my effort not to fall about laughing at his antics. I thought to myself, forget swimming get him into acting ‘right away’.
in Valentine, New South Wales, Australia
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