Why we love our grandies so much…

The birth of our first grandchild is such a wonderful and special time for everyone, and the birth of my first grandchild Matthew was no different. He was the first baby on my side of the family and brought so much joy and pride to everyone.

Like all grandchildren, he grew into a very special little person who gave your life a whole new dimension. I lived quite close to Mat so was lucky enough to see him almost every day until my marriage broke up and I had to move further away, and with a full time job my visits were restricted to weekends only.

Mat was a very happy little boy who love nothing more than a feed and a chat. He would eat anything and chat with anyone. He was often chastised for talking to strangers but was always able to explain that he did know these people… like the elderly gentleman who went to the same church as his other Nan or the elderly lady who was Mary from kindys Nan.

We worked out Mat could probably be stuck down a mine for a fortnight and still bump into someone he knew, but as young as he was, he was always aware of what was going on around him.

One particular weekend I had him when he was about four; I told him we could have Chinese for dinner. The local Chinese was very close to home so we could go and get some dinner and take it home to eat, but he said no, we should eat out, so eat out we did.

We went early to avoid the Saturday night rush. The restaurant had two rooms. I chose the smaller one out the back and we settled at a small table in the corner.

Mat ordered his three courses and chatted away until his first course came. Our table was in full view of the toilet doors and Mat spent a lot of his time watching who went in and for some reason, seemed happy to see them come back out again and return to their tables.

One particular lady went into the toilet and I could tell by Mat’s body language she was taking too long for his liking, to come back out again. I should tell you at this point that Mat is a bit of a mother hen. When he comes out with his mother and me, he always walks behind us… this is to make sure he can see us and we are OK.

He didn’t say a word to me but I knew he was uncomfortable about this particular lady being in the toilet for so long. Then he looked up to me with a huge smile on his face… it was like a light had come on in his head, and he announced in quite a loud voice “I know Nan… she’s doing a poo!”

The whole room went silent and unfortunately for the lady, she walked out of the toilet as soon as he had made his revelation. “Here she is!” he said with a huge smile on his face and the whole room filled with muffled laughter and twitters from the other diners. As she walked passed him the lady returned his smile but of course, she had no idea why everyone was laughing, and I’m afraid all I could do was laugh at him too.

With all that over, he settled down to eat his dessert. Of course, Mat being Mat, he said goodnight to everyone and I am happy to say most of the room returned his greeting, still smiling at him, and on the way out, he gave his lady a personal goodnight.

Mat had a very difficult birth and we found out as he grew older, this had left him mildly intellectually handicapped. I am happy to tell you he goes to work three days a week, he is six foot four, 120KGs, and he still loves a feed and a chat.

Tell us, why do you love your grandchildren?