Grandparents

I'm going a little out of sequence here, but I had some thoughts I wanted to share about the people in Bennett's (and our) life/lives.

Brian and I are both fortunate to have both parents still living and *gasp* still married to each other! That's two sets of functional grandparents for Bennett. We used to live close to the Erlandson grandparents, now we live close to the Allman grandparents. (For the record, we do not live near either uncle.)

Both sets of grandparents love to visit, which is wonderful, because Bennett is getting to take full advantage of these relationships. Granna and Daddy-o live in North Carolina, which is far away from Buffalo! For the first three weeks of Bennett's life, my mother - Granna - was able to stay with us in Virginia to help Brian and me get settled into our new life as a family. It was such a relief to have someone with experience and patience there to take the early morning shift and to help me stay sane when my milk ran dry. She cooked, she cleaned, she ran errands, she held baby. Daddy-o came for a few days as well, both right after the birth and then later in November for our move up North. We were quite thankful to have a doctor in the house during his visits!

We are also lucky to have another medical professional in our cadre of grandparents. Brian's mother, Doris, or Oma, is an obstetrics nurse. YAY! She provided countless hours of support during my healing and post-partum days. When she and Leonard, Grandpa, came to visit the weekend after Bennett came home, our house overflowed with love. It was obvious that the latest addition to our families was lighting up every heart in the room.

Now that we are in the northeast, we are able to travel to Canada for monthly visits with the Allmans, and have even been able to meet extended family. Bennett loved spending time with his little cousins Korbyn and Kayden. Brian and I were overjoyed with Bennett's laid back attitude to these new folks. He played very well with everyone.

We were also able to take a trip to Georgia and North Carolina back in late June/early July. Again, Bennett wowed us with his social skills. New people were coming at him left and right every single day. For the most part, he just rolled with the punches and threw smiles to everyone. The only squawks came when Gene Jones surprised Bennett from behind when in the middle of a very large crowd of adoring fans at Elkin First United Methodist. Granna was proudly showing him off to all her friends. He was able to calm down quickly, and continue to meet his fans.

Even though we do not live in the same city as our families, a phenomenon that most of Buffalo does not know about, we are so fortunate to have families who love us and travel to spend time with us. We look forward to spending more time with each of them so that Bennett can learn where he comes from.