First Sleepover

Today is a bit bittersweet.  It’s Magoo’s first ever real sleepover at Grandma and Grandpa’s house.  (She stayed there when the Goose was born, but that doesn’t really count.)

I was getting all excited for her, and then I took this picture of her on the way out the door, and it made me tear up because she looks so old!  When did this little baby who couldn’t even hold her head up or roll over on her side turn into this confident little girl with a backpack full of her clothes and no fear about staying somewhere else?

Just as I was getting all nostalgic and a bit wistful, I remembered going on sleepovers at my grandparent’s house when I was her age.  I remember just how exciting it was.  We would go over there and eat dinner while my grandma lit the fancy candles and used a fancy tablecloth.  Then we would play canasta and other card games and finally, we would have a big bowl of my grandpa’s ice cream before bed.

I still remember what the cup looked like that held our toothbrushes and what the sheets felt and smelled like as I slipped in under them to fall asleep.  While laying in bed, my grandma would tell us stories.  I don’t remember all of them, but I do remember that “The Princess and the Pea” and “The Billy Goat Gruff” were some of our favorites.  We would wake up in the morning, and my grandma would make me pancakes.

I was thinking about all of these things when I came to a stoplight right across from the cemetery where my grandma is buried.  All of a sudden I noticed the song, and the lyrics “It’s a love without end amen.”  Of course, the tears started again at that moment, but all of a sudden, I got an incredible feeling of pride.

See, I try very hard in many aspects to give my children what I had growing up, and I realized at that moment, that I was giving them a huge blessing in that they get to live all of the special moments with their grandparents that I got to live with mine.  My grandma has been gone for just over three years now, and I still feel her presence often and think about her daily.  She’s physically gone, but I now know what they mean when they say people can live forever in your heart.

And that’s what my girls are getting.  They are getting to live these moments with their grandparents that they will remember forever and carry in their hearts even longer.  They are getting their own special, “love without end,” and for that I am very grateful.

I’ll still feel a bit sad when I lay in bed tonight and realize it will be the first night since she was born that we will go to sleep in our house without Magoo.  And I think that’s how it should be.  But then I’ll remember that I get to pick her up in the morning and hear about all of her fun times.