Grandma Can TALK

More parenting videos on JuiceBoxJungle

By far the best part about the level (super high) of my mom's involvement with my kids, is that I no longer have to listen to the stories of her childhood. They do.

I mean that in the nicest way.

It's not that I don't love the stories - she grew up in Savannah Georgia and tales of sticky sweet islands mixed with rural hog farming and the zany city life in Savannah, all wrapped in the reality of an only girlchild born to Southern Baptists is not uninteresting. In fact, I wrote a whole book about it. But seriously. It's someone else's turn to listen. Like all good southerners, my Mama can talk...and she wants listeners! And lo and behold, my kids love to oblige.

It helps that we go to the Deep South every summer and experience most of the things she tells us about. The kids can't get enough of the oppressive heat, salty warm ocean and barbeque (and frankly, neither can I). Like a few people in the show say, there is nothing that can replace the direct telling of her experiences to my children, no matter how much sugar she gives them during visits.

I am grateful for her stories, for the history and knowledge of a whole other world I would never otherwise know, and I am grateful that passing it along to my kids is a duty I can delegate joyfully to her.