Grandparents are the best!

Throughout my pregnancy I had many people tell me to do everything I ever wanted to do (vacation, see a movie, etc.) before I had the baby, because after he was born, they would explain, I would never be able to do anything without him. The notion kind of worried me but I was so excited about having a baby so I didn't let things like that distract my excitement. A month or so before K.P. was born I had a friend (who at the time had 1 daughter, now she has a newborn son too!) tell me that all she wanted to do was go on vacation and be able to sit by the beach or pool at sunset and have a cocktail drink with an umbrella in it. She said she had not done anything like that in 3 years because she had her 3-year-old daughter and her daughter always went with them on vacation and had to be in bed by the time sunset rolled around and she obviously couldn't leave her daugher in the room alone to go boozing down by the beach. I felt really sorry for her. All of the sudden I had a couple of panic attacks at the thought of never being able to vacation and drink cocktails at sunset again. I was having flashbacks and remembering all of those warnings from people before I got pregnant. However, one key factor in her story is that she and her husband are Houston transplants. They are both from Omaha, Nebraska and neither have family in town. Our situation is distinctly different. Both of our families live in Houston or a Houston suburb and are no more than a 30-minute drive.

After hearing her story and then having K.P. I realized how lucky I was to have mine and Andrew's parents living so close. It also makes me realize how lucky K.P. is to have such wonderful grandparents who love him and who are eager to share his life. I feel grateful and blessed that he will grow up knowing his grandparents as they will be a constant presence in his every day life activies. They will be at his practices, soccer and baseball games, school programs and every birthday. They will be there on the weekends for Saturday outings or Sunday brunch or dinner. They will just always be there. They will always be there will open arms and unconditional love.

And they have already been there. Ever since K.P. was about 3 or 4 weeks old, Andrew and I have been able to take 1 night out of the week to go to dinner and have a date night. There is always at least one grandparent who is eagerly volunteering to watch him. It has been really nice to be able to be alone with each other, even if it is for a couple of hours. As he gets older, the outings have gotten longer and we've even had a couple of overnight vacations where K.P. stayed with a grandparent. We went to St. Louis earlier this summer for a wedding and are going to Las Vegas for my 30th birthday on Labor Day weekend. Neither of these trips would have been possible if we did not have the support of such wonderful grandparents.

The idea came for this post because Grandma Slania volunteered to keep K.P. this Saturday night so Andrew and I could have a night out (she also wanted to have a trial run before Labor Day weekend). This will be his first overnight stay with Grandparent Slanias and I think he will have a great time. I really hope he sleeps well so he is invited back :)

I just want to take this time to thank all of our grandparents. Your support and love for K.P. is the greatest thing in the world. There is nothing that makes a mom feel better than to have others love their child the way they do. I think K.P. is the luckiest boy in the world to have so many people who love him.

I was flipping through the pictures in my camera and I found all of these pictures of the grandparents holding K.P. during the first couple of weeks after he was born. I love looking at how proud and happy the grandparents are of their little grandson.