My wife has been in her element for the last 7 weeks

One of the most interesting and fun things since our grandson came along has been the way in which Terry has taken to being a grandmother.

Some people are just born for certain roles, and there is no doubt my wife was meant to be – among many other things – a grandma.

She has spent much of the last two months preparing food for new parents Chloe and Michael, making the 45-minute trip to and from their home in Akron, buying little Cal outfits she finds in thrift stores, and generally taking to this new stage of life like the proverbial duck to water.

I remember her doing the same thing in 1994 when Elissa was born. The Terry I knew changed forever the minute she became a mother. Her kindness and heart were still there (and remain her defining features), but she transformed in ways that were necessary to take on the demands of raising children.

The change is more subtle into grandparenthood, but it is still evident, and it has been such a joy to watch.

Terry reminds me of my own mom and the sort of loving, open grandmother she was.

My wife has, on more than one occasion, cited Mom as her grandma role model, and in her I see the same willingness and eagerness to babysit as much as possible, the same tendency to pass along parental wisdom without being overbearing or smothering, and the same drive to support her own daughter's transition into motherhood.

You hear people rave about being grandparents all the time, but until you actually experience it, you can't fully grasp what they're talking about.

Terry was born for this, and as time goes by and he grows up, I think Cal will quickly come to realize what a blessing he has in Grammy Tennant.

As for me as Grandpa, the only two things I've noticed so far are:

(1) That same intense desire to see my grandson whenever I can. Just can't get enough of him.

(2) The fact that I've turned into a blubbering mess.

I am strangely hormonal when I see or think about Cal. Chloe sends a new picture of him to the family text chat and I tear up. I stare at his little face when I hold him, thinking how much I wish our parents could have known him, and I tear up.

I see a TV commercial for laundry detergent in which a mom hugs her child and I tear up.

I hope this part of the grandpa thing passes soon, or otherwise I'm going to have to start injecting myself daily with shots of high-grade testosterone.

Two of my three college-educated daughters have gone back to school, and I love the reasons they're doing it

 

Elissa (left) and Melanie (right) both find themselves back in college. Chloe (middle) has a PhD and plans to go to medical school next year, but that's another post for another time.

My daughters Elissa and Melanie both earned bachelor's degrees in marketing from Cleveland State University. Both have experience in the professional world. And both are back at CSU for reasons of their own.

I admire them, especially when I consider the prospect of doing homework and participating in group projects years after my own undergraduate experience.

Let's hear from both to understand what it's like being a young adult going back to school and how they hope it benefits them long term...

Elissa (Age 31)

What are you studying?

Right now I am just taking a Biology 201 class. Next semester I am scheduled to take BIO 202 and Chemistry 201. The ultimate goal is to study environmental science.

Why are you doing it?

After working for a climate change organization for so long in marketing, I'm realizing I'm more interested in the science/research/policy part of climate change rather than the human behavioral/psychological/ marketing part of climate change. I've also always been interested in wildlife conservation and ecological restoration.

I thought about getting an MBA but realized it would make me miserable, so I started looking into getting a master's in environmental science. The only school that would accept me without asking me to 1) move, and 2) go back for a full science undergrad first was Cleveland State. If I take three undergrad science courses there, I'll be eligible to apply for the master's program in environmental science.

How long will it take you?

I don't know because I'm only taking one class, and I told myself if I hate it then I'll just let the dream die. But so far so good. I think the master's program is two years, so if I started next fall I wouldn't be finished until 2028 at the earliest. But again, I could dip out at any second. I'm keeping everyone (including myself) on their toes.

How is it going so far?

Going back to one of the most formative places of my life, where I met many of the people I love and became the person I am today, is a form of psychological torture I wouldn't wish on anyone but currently endure twice a week now. (Thus why I tried to go to LITERALLY ANY OTHER SCHOOL and couldn't find an in.) But at least I already know where the microwaves are on campus.

Also, biology is really hard, but I'm doing OK so far. I like learning about plants and cells. Recently I learned how to find variation and standard deviation for a dataset in Excel. I also learned about nucleotides.

Melanie (Age 25)

What are you studying?

I'm working toward my MBA.

Why are you doing it?

I wasn't diagnosed/medicated for ADHD until my last semester of undergrad, and that was the one and only semester of college I ever felt like I enjoyed and learned a lot from. I want that experience now that I have ADHD under control and feel like there's a lot I could learn. Also, I want a masters degree and felt like an MBA was the most broad and non-specific, since I don't really know exactly what I want to do with my life.

How long will it take you?

It's probably going to take me around 3.5 years, but that may change depending on my financial situation. Currently I'm only taking one class per semester because I'm paying out of pocket and working a full-time job. In the future if I can ever afford/feel like I have the time to do two/semester, then that would shorten the time. It's only 10 classes I need to take overall.

How is it going so far?

It's going well. My first class is 100% group work and pretty low effort. I could honestly probably do the assignments without any studying based on my previous knowledge and common sense, but in an effort to make it worth my while, I am doing the readings and taking notes and all that jazz. I am hopeful that future courses in the program will be less group work and perhaps a bit more challenging.

I'm working on my ability to sit and do nothing while ignoring my phone

When I was a kid, there were often long stretches of time when you had to sit and do nothing.

Like if you were taking a test in school and finished early, you had to fold your hands and stare into space until everyone else finished.

Or if your mom took you to the doctor, you had to sit in the waiting room and do just that – wait. If you weren't interested in reading one of the 500 copies of Highlights magazine strewn about the pediatrician's office, your only other option was simply to exist for several minutes until the nurse called your name.

I don't recall especially loving those times when I had no book to read, no game to play, and nothing stimulating to do. But the point is I did it, and I could do it because we all learned to do it out of necessity.

This is one of the few areas of life in which my 8-year-old self far surpasses my current 55-year-old self. Whereas in 1977 I was quite skilled at doing nothing, I have somewhere along the way completely lost that ability.

Nowadays, I need something to occupy my time and attention every waking moment. Several times a day, that means pulling my phone out of my pocket and either scrolling mindlessly through Facebook or playing a game.

I can't endure even the slightest bit of inactivity.

I was going to blame all of this on my phone, but the real culprit here is of course me. I have allowed myself to become addicted to smartphone time, and I don't know how to be rid of this dependence other than proactively forcing myself to do nothing for minutes at a time.

So that's what I do. When I catch myself reaching for my phone to fill "dead time," I sometimes hold back and instead just sit and think.

It can be miserable. I was at one time a very patient person, but now I get antsy if I'm not watching something, playing something, or checking something off my to-do list.

There is much value in simply existing and being mindful of your surroundings. I know this, but that doesn't mean it's easy for me. I struggle to truly relax.

Take this blog post, for example. I'm just about finished writing it and have no idea what I'm going to do next. I'm terrified that, a minute or two from now, I'll have no choice but to stare out the window.

I'm getting twitchy just thinking about it. Where's my phone?

Three things I've learned from my daughter Melanie

Mel and me a few years ago trying desperately to get a New York City subway pass vending machine to cooperate...

My daughter Melanie, our fourth child in birth order and for a time the baby of the family until Jack came along, turned 25 yesterday. I like having a kid who was born in 2000 because it's always easy to remember exactly how old they are.

More importantly, though, I just love Mel. Always makes me laugh, always impresses me, and always has a good story to tell.

Here are three things I've learned from Melanie while watching her grow into adulthood:

(1) Successful people are usually structured people

You don't have to be obsessive about it like me (endless to-do lists, an extreme creature of habit, etc.), but other than a few fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pants geniuses, most people I know who are doing well in life are those whose days are at least somewhat planned out. Mel is someone who needs structure in her life, but beyond that, she has figured out exactly what kind and what degree of structure works best for her. There's a trick to that, and I'm not sure I've yet figured it out. Mel still has a way to go, just as I did at age 25, but she has reinforced this valuable lesson for me time and again.

(2) Be ready to pivot

Mel came out of college with a marketing degree. Her first real professional job was in a marketing role, and it didn't take her long to realize marketing wasn't for her. So now she works for a financial services firm. Finance could be her long-term home, or this could be a role that pays the bills while she figures out what she really wants to do. The point is, she was willing to change direction when it was needed. Some people are so terrified of making this sort of switch that they stay for years in a miserable situation just for the stability. Not my Melanie, and she's better off for it.

(3) Don't discount the greater value of hard work at the gym

Mel takes care of her body. You'll see her at the gym a lot, and when you do, she's not there to socialize. She's there to work, sweat, lift, etc. There are aesthetic benefits to that, of course, but more broadly, it also teaches you lessons of perseverance and motivation that transfer well to other areas of life. We exercise for physical health, sure, but that payoff also extends to everything else we do day to day. Thanks, Mel.

The all-important issue of what you as a grandparent are going to be called

Cal and me

The most common question I received before and after my grandson Calvin was born three weeks ago was what exactly the little guy would call me.

My answer was always the same: "I don't know, and I mostly don't care. He can call me whatever he wants."

Within reason, of course.

The early favorite seems to be the straightforward "Grandpa." To our kids, my dad was "Grandpa Tennant" and Terry's dad was "Grandpa Ross," so the title is already ingrained into our family culture.

But nothing is set in stone, especially since the little guy is all of 21 days old and hasn't quite yet mastered the art of speech.

The people who will have the greatest influence on how Cal refers to his grandparents are his mom and dad, Chloe and Michael. Whatever they call us is very likely what he will call us.

Terry has lobbied to be known as "Grammy." Which is great, but again, unless Cal hears it a lot at home, it's not going to stick.

In any case, the list of potential grandparent names is certainly varied. For men, beyond Grandpa, I've also heard Gramps, Grampy, Grandad, Grandaddy, Grandpap, Papa, Papaw, Poppy, Opa, and the hilariously 21st-century "Granddude."

For women, there's Grandma, Grammy, Grams, Nana, Ga-Ga, Memaw, Mimi, Nanny, Nonna, and another hysterically modern and perhaps tongue-in-cheek selection: "Insta-gram."

Often we take on whatever name our grandchild calls us when he or she is a baby and just learning to talk. So far, in Calvin's case, the only sound he has made when looking at me involves a raspberry and copious amounts of spit.

Somehow, though, "Grandpa Brzzzzzttttfoooo" doesn't have much of a ring to it.

We're enjoying having a college kid in the family again

Jack on his first day of college

The recent birth of our grandson has somewhat overshadowed another significant family milestone, which is the fact that our youngest son, Jack, started college a couple of weeks ago.

Jack is a freshman data science major at Cleveland State University. He's a little older than the typical freshman at 19 1/2, the result of a two-year process of trying to figure out exactly what he wanted to do in life.

Lots of young people go through the same extended period of self-reflection that Jack did, and I'm surprised it's not even more common. Asking 17- and 18-year-olds to pinpoint exactly what career path they're going to follow is a tall order, especially in a world that changes as rapidly as ours.

Since graduating high school in 2023, Jack has had a brief fling with community college, considered a career in the trades, and worked full time for nearly a year cleaning cages in an animal research laboratory.

Eventually he came to Terry and me and said he thought it would be best to go to college and earn a bachelor's degree of some sort. He is interested in statistics and data analysis – a field that will surely be reshaped by the emergence of artificial intelligence – so data science it is.

Starting in 2012 when Elissa began her own four-year journey at Cleveland State, we had a kid or kids in college continuously for 11 years. For me as Dad, it was a blur of FAFSA forms, dorm move-ins, and essays to edit.

Now, after a two-year break, I'm excited to get back into that world.

Like me so many years ago, Jack is a college commuter. He lives at home and drives downtown five days a week to attend class. There are advantages to doing that (particularly financial ones), but it can also mean being somewhat disengaged from school activities outside of the classroom.

I made an effort to be involved in the band and the school newspaper when I was at John Carroll University, at least until the demands of a nearly full-time work schedule at The News-Herald made those extracurriculars impossible. Jack has talked about joining the CSU pep band, and I hope he does. It would be good for him.

You know, becoming a grandparent can make you feel old. But I'm finding that once again having a college kid in the family balances that out. It makes Terry and I realize we're still very much in our primes.

Good luck to Jack, and go Vikings!

You've heard all of my stories. We're scaling this blog back to one post a week.

I like to say I've been blogging since 2011, but that's not really true.

For one thing, the blog started in December of that year, so it barely made 2011. (The posts I have here from 2006 and 2007 were from a separate blog, and I just keep them to make sure they don't disappear into the ether.)

More to the point, check out the number of posts I've put up each year since then. (Note that the current 2025 number is actually somewhere north of 100, but it was at 89 when I wrote this in late July.)

Clearly, I've taken my fair share of months/years off from blogging. What was going on in 2014, 2018 and 2019 that I couldn't at least dash off a few words a week? I don't even remember. 

I am still impressed I cranked out 287 posts during the Covid year of 2021, though.

Anyway, in the past when my schedule has filled to overflowing and/or I felt like I had run out of ideas, I simply stopped blogging for extended periods.

Nowadays, while I'm definitely feeling like I've run out of ideas, I still want to keep going.

Only less frequently.

As of this Monday, September 8, 5Kids1Wife.com will go from a Monday-Wednesday-Friday posting cadence to Monday mornings only. New posts going up at 8:00 AM sharp, as always.

Terry and I have a new grandbaby, of course, and my work and PA announcing schedules are such that finding time to write has become difficult.

Not to mention the fact that I don't even know what to write about anymore.

I'll throw some thoughts up here once a week in case you're still interested, and I figure I can start building a stockpile of stories and interesting topics to cover as I learn to be a grandfather.

Maybe in a year or two we'll go back to posting multiple times a week.

In the meantime, thanks for reading. I always appreciate it. I hope you'll keep stopping by on Monday mornings.