I was on the phone with my mom other day when she was gushing about my baby, her granddaughter. 

“Don’t tell anyone I said this because it doesn’t sound good,“ my mom started. “It won’t make other people feel comfortable, so don’t tell anyone. My grandchild is the cutest grandchild in the world! There is no one cuter than my little Kaia. She is just so cute! Her cheeks! Her face! Her smile! She is the cutest baby in the entire world!”

I smiled while also half rolling my eyes as my mom gushed endlessly over how cute her grandchild is. Grandparents are generally like this about their grandchildren. They are just glowing all the time, and it’s easy to understand: they get all of the glory and all of the bragging rights without having to do any of the work. They get to have a full night’s sleep every night. They get to go about their day-to-day activities and hobbies. Their everyday lives do not change. What does change is their ability to enjoy a child without having to do any of the raising of the child. And that sounds pretty glorious in itself, doesn’t it, especially since they had their fair share of time raising children.

OK, I am clearly generalizing here. My grandma did not enjoy this: she actually played an active part in raising me, my brother, and all of my cousins for that matter. For most of my friends who live near their parents, their parents played a very active role in raising them, and doing everything from feeding to changing diapers to cooking for my friends after they returned home from the hospital. My parents are not nearby to be able to do this, nor our Chris’s. I’m sure my mom would have helped out with cooking and cleaning as needed if she were closer, but I don’t think she would be physically able to care for the baby given her own health conditions; I know my dad certainly would not have wanted to at all. With Chris’s parents, I don’t have a feeling they’d want to stay up all night, either. His mom might have wanted to do it for a few days or even a couple weeks, but there would be an end to that quite quickly. Plus, as we all know, in-law support is not quite the same.

The real reason I think this is all so comical is that my mom has made and will be making zero effort to come meet her grandchild in person, and she’s using the COVID-19 pandemic, which really isn’t much of a pandemic anymore, as an excuse to not travel. She is waiting for ME to take the baby THERE. And… I just can’t wait for the drama that will ensue when that happens.