Sometimes procrastinating makes the decision for you.
In this case, I refer to the Mother’s Day card my daughter gave me this year.
After I opened it, the message was two-fold.
One, she admitted she waited too long to go to the store and all the ‘Mom’ and ‘Mother’ cards were gone and only ‘Grandmother’ cards remained.
Two, she figured that was fate since she was trying to decide how – and when – to break the news that she was, in fact, going to make me a grandmother.
And, even though Ally told me in that roundabout way back in May, I was pledged to secrecy for a REALLY long time until she and her husband Judd were ready to make the formal announcement.
I did get to take a sonogram photo back with me to New York and spread the news there during my mid-July vacation. Also having the chance to see lots of people at the recent Park Fete celebration in Escalon gave me plenty of opportunity to share it with everyone I saw. And, Ally finally gave me permission to put it in my column.
She said she was actually surprised I hadn’t put it in yet; seeing as how much of her life has ended up chronicled in this very space.
Her due date is in January and she enjoys staying up to date on the baby’s size – the other week it was the size of a pomegranate – and learning what to expect along the way. Of course everybody is different; every pregnancy is different even if there are some benchmarks. She hasn’t been experiencing too much in the way of cravings yet, though sour gummy candies are her go-to snack. And peaches are a recent new favorite. (My fruit craving was apples, in any form.) The baby is very specific about what she – testing indicates it’s a girl – does not like and she isn’t much of a meat eater. But then neither is Ally, so that makes sense.
People have asked what I will be called once I become a grandmother. I can’t honestly answer that; we will just have to wait until we get there.
My niece’s little boy calls my brother his ‘Papa’ and our dad, his great-grandfather, is ‘G-Papa’. My sister-in-law is known as ‘G-Ma’ and I know there are plenty of Nana’s and Grammy’s out there but I don’t have a favorite one way or the other.
Ally, Judd and I had the chance this weekend to go to a baby shower for Ally’s best friend, who is expecting in late September. They were in each other’s weddings and Katelyn will have her baby boy just a few months before Ally has her little girl. Knowing how inseparable Kate and Ally were throughout high school, it’s only fitting they will now be experiencing motherhood at the same time.
At the baby shower, Kate’s mom and I got to reminiscing; it was a hot, sunny, summer Saturday afternoon and back in the day, we would have been busy at a soccer tournament. This was about the time we would have been playing at the annual Shamrock Tournament in Dublin, one of the first tournaments of the travel season.
Kate and Ally started travel soccer together, playing on an Under 14 team when they were 11-years-old and they were fearless. One of my favorite photos of Ally was at a Castro Valley Tournament, chasing after a girl on the field that was about twice her size. Playing girls three years older and at least 30 to 40 pounds heavier than they were just made our two that much tougher; they didn’t care about any of that, they just wanted to get the job done. And they eventually grew into the age group they played in, suiting up for competitive travel soccer all the way through their teens.
Now we start on this new adventure. Ally’s not quite halfway through the pregnancy, so I’ve got a few more columns between now and that due date to keep you all updated.
Marg Jackson is editor of The Escalon Times, The Oakdale Leader and The Riverbank News. She may be reached at mjackson@oakdaleleader.com or by calling 847-3021.
