Looking at all of the pictures from our vacation, I can only hope that the laughing, frollicking, joyful older mother in those pictures will grow into an equally joyful, frollicking, laughing grandmother in the years to come. I was 26 years old, when my mother was my age. I had been married in my first marriage for almost three years. Plenty of time to have started a family and made my mother a proud grandma at the age that I am now. Didn't happen.

When I look at our vacation pictures, I don't see a grandmother who could be enjoying her grandchildren. I just see me, a mother, enjoying the heck out of her children. That all raises the question of what will the pictures look like when (and if) I become a grandmother. I don't mean how will I look physically. Obviously, I will look--old. I mean what will I be doing? How will I feel. What will my lifestyle be like then? Will I be in good health? Will I still be living independently? Will I still have enough oomph to spend a day at the pool? An hour at the pool? Go the the amusement park? If so, will my presence add to the excitement or will I be a burden?

Will I be able to enjoy my grandchildren the way my mother-in-law enjoys her grandchildren? She is "only" sixty-six years old and fit as a fiddle. She gardens. She cuts her own yard. She walks almost 4 miles a day. She gets an early start on the day and retires early in the evening. She cooks, and sews, and shops, and bakes, and socializes. Will that be my life when I become a grandmother? It's impossible to know for sure.

Admitedly, grandchildren were not at all on my mind when I chose to start my family at the age of thirty-seven, and to continue adding to it at the age of thirty-nine. However, time has brought the granny question into focus for me, so here I am contemplating what Grannydome will look and feel like. Presuming no teenage pregnancy is on the horizon for any of my children, I will be lucky if my oldest child has even started a family by the time I am sixty-six. Forget about the number crunching everyone was doing when I had my son "Geez, you'll be forty-three when he starts kindergarten!"). Try, "Geez, you'll be seventy-one when (newborn grandchild) starts kindergarten!"

Ouch. I think I'm going to go and lie down now.