Smile! This will be a Grandma Picture

A picture of Mommy and Daddy (of course), new Aunt, baby cousin, Grandpa and a picture of Grandma.  This was the list of up-close face pictures I took to fill a sweet, soft vinyl book I sent to our son and daughter-in-law even before little Asher was born.  I learned very clearly the impact of a loved one’s picture for a new baby with our first grandson, Seth.

Our first grandson got to meet his daddy at age two weeks, for a two week leave from a mountain top in Afghanistan where he served in the US Army.  He had his second introduction to his daddy at nine months.  A lot had changed in those many months of growing: from sleeping much of the day, to rolling over, making those adorable baby sounds, to eating his first cereal, to sitting up in his bath, through several sizes of diapers and through many pictures to mark the growth and the special moments of those first months.

I began putting up pictures on my refrigerator of grandma and baby, baby doing something cute, and granddad and baby, and (my favorite) a picture of little Seth with his Daddy when he was home those two weeks early on in his little life.  I loved my pictures on my refrigerator.  I even treated myself to new magnets to hold these special memories. 

It wasn’t any of us who first drew attention to these refrigerator pictures, it was the baby.  As we prepared a meal in the kitchen, Seth looked right at the picture of grandma holding baby Seth and he smiled.  As we brought him closer, he reached for and smiled and even babbled and, as he grew, he named “Nana” as the person in the picture.  We talked a lot about Nana and Granddad and Mommy and Daddy and always marveled that he reacted to these pictures. 

The army had to know the impact of pictures for little ones, because before Seth’s daddy left for a year’s tour overseas, they gave every family with a child a fabric army doll with a vinyl pouch over the face to house a picture of the special soldier for any of those little children who would be missing their loved one.  That doll became a pretty regular companion to Seth and he knew Daddy’s picture – in fact he rightly call the doll “dada”.  At times he would hold that doll, and just look at the face of his “dada”.  And when the reunion happened after so many months, Seth seemed to know his daddy’s face when they met again after nine months – there was definitely a look like, “I know you”. 

I have come to love my special pictures of loved ones more than ever.  I have had a “picture” wall in our family room for years.  It houses pictures of the kids when they were little, of their grandparents, and of special times together as a family.  But I have a renewed appreciation for this wall since Seth has begun to regularly point out “granddad”, “mommy and dada”, and “Nana”. 

I’m amazed at how much a new baby learns and the unexpected places of recognition.  I made sure that our second grandbaby had a picture of all the most important people in his new little life.  Of course, one of those was a picture of grandma.

Advise from Nana: keep pictures of grandma, granddad, mommy, daddy and of a child’s special people in their lives where they can see them and react to them.  And remember a picture is the perfect gift for grandma and grandpa.