On Being a Grandparent

On being a grandparent today.

 Am I the only one? It took me 10 months to get up the nerve to take my granddaughter in the car for a short spin. I had so much trouble securing the harness with my arthritic fingers. The normally calm and content baby was screaming by the time I locked her in because it took me so long to complete the task. Then to add insult to injury, I couldn't open the stroller bottom. It was locked into place and it wouldn't budge open. I asked a few people if they knew how to do this and they laughed. They had the same problem. It took me fifteen minutes to open the contraption. I touched every clip, thinking something would spring it open. I was going to just take the baby seat out and lock it in the car and throw the rest of it in the trunk but the stroller bottom was too big for my trunk.
Oh, for the good old days when we held our babies in our arms in our cars and they fell asleep there. Of course, I do think that the idea of the harness is safer if your hands work well enough to lock them in.

I was much better off carrying the infant seat to the stroller and taking the baby for a walk, as long as someone else set it up for me. When I did that, My body is tilted sideways with the weight of the seat and baby but it did protect her.

The new bottles do seem to give the babies less gas and the "sleep sheep" put me to sleep very quickly, when the baby takes a nap. All of these conveniences are good. Now if my fingers were more nimble, I would be fine.