2009 - The Year in Review
January We began 2009 with a fascinating presentation by
author Nancy Mellon on the transformational power of storytelling. Nancy
believes that grandmas have a mission to restore sanity to the earth. We can
become parents again in a new way by taking all our wisdom and seeing what
inspiration comes to us in helping our grandchildren grow up. Grandparents
often are the most profound influence because parents are so busy they often
don't have the time or the attention that we grandmothers do. There's also a
natural bond between skipped generations.
On Inauguration Day I wrote a post inspired by GaGa
Cheri that continues to receive more visits than many of my posts: President
Barack Obama in a sculpture made of chopped liver! Read my post and
you'll see why.
February
A new member sent me an email that motivated me to
write about defining our grandparent philosophy. She wrote: Since
grandchildren don't come with an instruction manual, I better join the GaGa
Sisterhood so I can get some help with my new role as "grandma!"
I offered
some food for thought from Judy Ford, Wonderful Ways to Love a Grandchild, and Dr. Lillian Carson, The Essential Grandparent, who
each devote chapters to making a plan for the type of grandparent you would
like to be. When we think about our role, we are more conscious about our
intentions, we connect more deeply, and we get more satisfaction from the
interactions we have.
March
Our March meeting was a notable first: GaGa Susana
brought her two beautiful granddaughters, Victoria, 14, and Natalie, 9, to talk about their family's volunteer work in Kenya. They
were part of a program sponsored by Free The Children. Kim Plewes, 19, the
youth program manager of Free The Children also spoke.
At the end of her presentation Susana
suggested we collect our small change and donate it to buy a goat for a village
through FTC. We were all so inspired by the girls and their volunteer efforts
that we collected a generous total of $75. The GGS added enough to make it a
$100 donation.
April
In April I met another grandma who blogs, Sally
Wendkos Olds. She sent me her book, Super Granny: Great Stuff to do with Your
Grandkids, which I reviewed on my blog.
For the book, Sally interviewed 60 grandmothers about what they love to do with
their grandchildren. Then she compiled the interviews into 75 stories with
how-to suggestions for each creative activity. I was so touched by her
wonderful writing and descriptions of her relationships with her five
grandchildren. Sadly, Sally has not been blogging since her beloved husband of
54 years passed away in October.
May
Our May meeting was a coup for me: Adair
Lara, long-time columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle and author of The Granny
Diaries, kept us all
laughing hysterically as she read passages about following the parents' rules,
how not to ask for their permission, and some innocent remarks to avoid.
Another coup was the great feature story
Patty Fisher wrote about the GaGa Sisterhood in her San Jose Mercury News
column.
June
So often my inspiration for topics
comes from those of you who email me or send me articles. After visiting
Yosemite National Park, I retrieved a National
Wildlife article a GaGa gave me two years ago. It was an essay by Rachel
Carson on nurturing the love of nature in children, which became the subject
for June's GaGazine. In my research I discovered the Green Hour,
sponsored by The National
Wildlife Fund. The Green Hour website encourages parents and
grandparents to get outdoors with their children and grandchildren by providing
ideas for activities to explore nature and the outdoors.
July
Our July topic, "When Being a Grandma
Isn't So Grand," gets the award for the liveliest discussion we've ever had!
There was a whole lot of venting going on, about the challenges between our
grandchildren's parents and us. This meeting was long overdue. There was relief in being able to
vent about hurt feelings, sensitive egos, parents who are overly cautious and
"risk averse," the need to walk on eggshells, and defensive
daughters-in-law. We'll definitely revisit this topic.
August
In August I introduced our new GaGa
Sisterhood members-only online community provided by Big Tent. It's slowly been
catching on as more of you realize that you can find details of our meetings,
post questions, and share resources with each other on this website.
After our family vacation with my
children and grandchildren, I shared 8 tips for enjoying multigenerational
family vacations.
September
I've always described our members as
"multi-faceted" and our September meeting reinforced that when we each got a
chance to hear who we are when we're
not "grandma."
At that meeting I proudly offered copies
of The Art of Grandparenting, a new anthology that I contributed to.
October
Seven of our members participated in a
focus group with Hand in Hand, a non-profit organization in Palo Alto, that teaches
parents the skills for building close connections with their children. The founder,
Patty Wipfler, who's a mother and grandmother, wanted our input for a new class
called The Grandparent Advantage.
Since so many of us are long-distance
grandmas, I offered some ideas for staying connected with our grandchildren
over the miles.
A news story about the GGS in The Almanac
generated some interest and a few new members.
November
I hit a milestone this month by writing
my 100th blog post. I reviewed
a wonderful book that has hundreds of fun, low-cost activities for grandparents
to share with their grandchildren whether they're near or far. Grandloving: Making Memories with Your Grandchildren is written by a grandmother, Sue Johnson, and her
daughter-in-law, Julie Carlson. One of their ideas inspired me to make my
granddaughters' Halloween costumes this year: bunches of grapes!
At our November meeting GaGa
Susan Borkin treated us to a clever and often-hilarious presentation she called
"10 Non-Rules for Creative Grandmas."
The j. weekly did a story about the GGS
and mentioned my talk at Temple Beth Am: "Be a Go-to Grandparent Whether You're
Near or Far." The turnout was great.
December
I celebrated the 6th
anniversary of the GGS by speaking to a group of grandmas at the Atherton
Library.
Thank you all for helping to
make 2009 the best year ever for the GaGa Sisterhood!!!
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