If I had known about grandchildren ...

I'll admit it - I thoroughly enjoyed raising my two children. While they were very young it was fun to watch all the milestones such as first solid food, first tooth, first word. Of course, now with the distance of years since that time, it's easy to forget the other part of those days ... the nighttime feedings, the illnesses, the crying, and all of those dirty diapers! Of course I wouldn't have exchanged it for anything, as that is just part of enjoying little kids ... isn't it?

But then I discovered ... grandchildren! Or in my case (so far) ... grandsons - twin grandsons. Two new children in the family - and my wife didn't have the "inconvenience" of being pregnant or giving birth. I didn't have to put up with the "fun" of the personality changes of her being pregnant. We did wait through the night when they were born, but naturally, that was the fun part.

Their first year we got to see so many of their firsts, such as their first holiday (Halloween), their first New Year's Eve, and all of the developmental firsts such as the first smile ... times two!!! And while a diaper or two was changed, the bulk of that fell to their parents. Yes there was the drool, spit-up and all those fun things, but when they happened, all we had to do was hand them back to mom and/or dad. Ahh the perks of being a grandparent. And of course, we get to spoil them rotten.

At seventeen months old now, they are much more like little boys than babies, and quite a bit more interactive. When one looks into my phone case and looks at me and says, "Hi?", I know he wants to know where my phone is - one of his favorite things to play with. And how much fun is it watching the other twin trying to figure out some new feature of one of his toys? And though they are twins - albeit fraternal as opposed to identical - their personalities are so different from each other in every manner ... from what they like to eat, to how they like to play, and how they interact with other people. Be careful, or Sean will hustle you with a game of pool!

But this is such a fun age because they are constantly surprising you. New vocabulary - although the ubiquitous "NO!" has already become a regular part of how they will answer questions.

As the saying goes, if I knew that grandchildren were so much fun, I would have had them first.