Midnight Seesawing

I remembered the neatest thing last week.

I was at a playground with the kids (we visit as many as we can, like it's our job. Because it is). We were playing on the seesaw, and all of a sudden, instead of Rosie on the other end, I saw my grandma.

My smiling 55 year old grandma, seesawing with me at midnight.

Okay, it probably wasn't midnight. But I can tell you it was past 10pm, and pretty much anything after 10pm felt like midnight to my 12 year old self.

She was just the Coolest Grandma. Period. The End.

My grandma and grandpa were only 43 when I was born. They had my mom when they were 18, which is why then ended up being really young grandparents. My most fun childhood memories involve them. My gram watched me every weekday until I went to school, then it was overnights and school vacations at their house while my parents worked.

We went camping, bike riding, hiking, canoeing, you name it. My grandparents, being so young, had energy and were incredibly active. Because of them, I developed a love for the outdoors.

Back to midnight seesawing. It must have been a Saturday night sleepover in late spring. My sister (5 years old at the time) and grandpa had already gone to bed. Gram always let me stay up way late when I spent the night, and we were finishing up a game when one of us had the idea to take a night walk around the block. We were already in our pajamas, but we didn't care- we knew we wouldn't be running into anyone in that sleepy town at the time of night! We started our walk and ended up at the park in the center of town. We seesawed (quietly, as it was against the rules to be in the park after dusk!). I'm certain I remember us cracking up laughing though. How could we not? We were seesawing, in our pajamas, in the park late at night.

It was a blast.

I'm so glad that fun memory bubbled to the surface. I hope I can be that fun of a grandma someday. There seems to be a carefreeness about grandmahood that doesn't always come as easily with motherhood!