Daniel McAndrew

On the last evening of 2011, a few miracles occurred.
But let me back up a little.

For almost one month, my oldest granddaughter was living with us.
It’s been a little rough for her and her immediate family, her mother recently gave birth to their newest daughter. They have 5 (officially) now with another youngster they are raising and hoping to adopt. We all hope for the best with that.

The difficulties of raising such a busy and full family are – shall I say – more pronounced when you have teenagers to contend with. (I finally understand this even better now as I am the oldest of 6 in my own immediate family.)

So, long story short, my oldest granddaughter moved in with us in order to give her family a chance to ease their strains and burdens for a bit. (Who am I kidding, for as long as necessary?)

Without elaborating on too much detail, suffice to say it’s today’s combination of adolescence, mental growing pains along with anguish, the internet and (grand)parents who keep saying no, not yet. I know that can get rather boring and totalitarian on the receiving end as a teenager (since I was one once – eons ago).

Last night was New Year’s Eve, your not so typical party night of all party nights. And our granddaughter wanted so much to join her friends for it. You can imagine her angst when the (grand)mothers said no.

Finally, it came down to me. What happened next even surprised me when I shut down their conversation (ahem) and talked with our granddaughter. (No specifics now.) And I explained how and why we got to this point. After all that, I told her to call her friend and invite her here to meet us and take her to the party and bring her back.

I found out later, so she told me, that her friend didn’t call her back to make these arrangements and it looked like the party plans were off.

Sometime after that, she asked me to take her to the movies. We went for a quick dinner (for her), 7:10 showing and didn’t get home until well after 10:30pm.

As I said earlier, I am quite sure a few miracles occurred last night.

I feel pretty sure this is going to be a Happy New Year. My granddaughter asked me to the movies.