Luann Tennant Coyne

Category: Children

The Job of a Grandmother

The job of a grandparent is to make a grandchild feel beloved, special, secure.  My grandmother did that for her grandchildren. Now I try to do that for my own grandchildren. World events can and do storm around us, but as grandparents we put aside our fears and concerns to give our grandchildren time and… Continue reading The Job of a Grandmother

Self-Care is Not Selfish

I found becoming the mother of a newborn terrifying. I was completely responsible for this helpless mite.  What if I screwed up?  What if I forgot to do something crucial? How could I possibly think of myself when this little one needed (and demanded) everything from me? I went into hyper-caretaking mode. Every moment (and… Continue reading Self-Care is Not Selfish

A Crater in My Life

It is Autumn, when a new batch of teenagers go away to college and a new batch of “empty-nester” parents learn to live a childless life, one no longer consumed by the ticking clock of responsibility for another human being. What do you do when a role that has kept you busy for 18 years,… Continue reading A Crater in My Life

Singing to the Trees

On this beautiful summer day when I took my grandson Elijah (who is one and half) out in the stroller, his little words and phrases were longer, and went up and down the scale. He was singing. He sang with complete unselfconsciousness, when he was “in the zone”… that is, when we were progressing slowly… Continue reading Singing to the Trees

“Oom” to All of Us

In mid-April,  my husband and I went back to our grandchildren’s house for the first time in over a year. We were vaccinated and thrilled to be back. Hanah, who is a “big girl” (3 years old), goes to daycare now. So we are babysitting just one grandchild, her little brother Elijah, one day a… Continue reading “Oom” to All of Us

“Just Like My Love for You”

Monarch butterflies have had a special meaning for us ever since the death of my infant granddaughter Eliana.  The summer after she died, we saw Monarch butterflies everywhere, even though an unusual hard frost in Mexico, where the Monarch butterflies spend the winter, had killed most of the Monarch population only months before. When Eliana’s… Continue reading “Just Like My Love for You”

The First Child Going Off to College: “A Hole in My Heart”

It is September, a time of new beginnings for college students and new endings for their mothers.

When my daughter Elizabeth went off to college in September of 2005, we grieved the painful gap in our family circle. For me personally, her loss felt like a hole in my heart, and the end of the mother-daughter relationship we had known.

I knew that Liz’s departure was what Judith Viorst calls a “necessary loss”, one of those times when in order for growth to occur, there must be loss.

But knowing that I needed to let Elizabeth go did not make the pain any less.

That September I wrote the following poem, to capture both the pain of loss and my hopes for our future relationship.

Really Screwing Up as a Mom, and its Benefits: A Letter to my Niece

This year’s Memorial Day’s gatherings have had to be nonexistent or very small.

So, I’m remembering with extra enjoyment a large and very special Memorial Day gathering, four years ago. In May of 2016, most of the women in my extended family converged in New Hope, PA, to attend a baby shower for my niece Erica.

During that love-filled and happy weekend, I was remembering how much I had leaned on some of these women when I had my first baby. I was thinking of how we all as mothers need the advice and support of other mothers. As a gift for Erica, I wrote the following letter, trying to pass on a little of what I had learned about being a mom. (I’ve tweaked the letter just a bit for clarity.)

A Mother’s Day Wish

I have a Mother’s Day Wish. It is for every woman, since we all mother in one way or another. My Mother’s Day Wish is that each of us, for one day, put aside all criticism of ourselves and of others, and practice what mothers do instinctively, 365 days of the year… join in the unending circle of unconditional love that makes the universe go round.

In Between

My granddaughter Hanah is 16 months old now, and at daycare she has been promoted out of the baby room.  She is in with the toddlers now. The toddlers get to sleep in cots on the floor (about one inch off the floor, but still, cots), and, an even bigger privilege, in the toddler room they do not take a morning nap.

So, overnight, Hanah has stopped taking a morning nap at daycare.

But physically she is still “in between”. Sometimes she needs a morning nap, and sometimes she doesn’t.