Keep It Simple, Grandparents

Grandparents can sit back and just plain old enjoy board games. Card games. Dominoes.

Grandparents can kick back in the garden and let the grandkids get dirty. And wet.

Grandparents can sing and dance with the grandkids without the use of an iPod or iTunes.

This is not to say that computers, DVDs, digital media applications and television technology haven't enhanced our world and given our grandchildren access to knowledge and information at their very finger tips...

But sometimes simplicity is just nice.

This means simplicity in a board game of Candy Land, Chutes and Ladders or Hi Ho Cherry-O, where "old-fashioned" pawns and mutil-colored cards and cardboard spinners are used while lots of thinking and talking and laughing takes place.

This means the simplicity of a long, green garden hose, a spade and some flower seeds. Ah, the advanced technology of the spiggot.

This means the simplicity and beauty of your voice belting out a song to a little one, out of tune and all, while dancing in your slippers.

This means simplicity in the lower kitchen cabinet that is reserved for the plastic plates and bowls, small pots and pans, and wooden spoons; you know, the things that become drums and drumsticks, stacking toys, and picnic lunches.

This means simplicity in sitting with a grandchild and a photograph album. A real photograph album, one filled with beautiful and meaningful photos that have been around for awhile, or that actually have been magically released from the digital camera.

There truly is something newly discovered and to be learned each and every day. But there is also something to be cherished each and every day, and that is time.

Time will increase strength, intelligence, mobility and even character in any child. Time will create memories. Time will teach lots of things.

Thank goodness that grandparents have the experience, the patience, the love and the enviable position to enjoy time with their grandchildren without all the pressure, competition, complications and pace that envelop the parents of these children.

Keep it simple.

Your grandchildren will love you for it.