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Moreen Simpson: Being a Nana is nae aywis easy but it’s the best job there is

When my first grand-Toot was born in 2011, I couldnae wait to hae her to masellie for 24 hours.

The highlight of my uneventful, quiet, but affa happy life is my grandchildren, writes Moreen Simipson. Image: Helen Hepburn.
The highlight of my uneventful, quiet, but affa happy life is my grandchildren, writes Moreen Simipson. Image: Helen Hepburn.

The highlight of my uneventful, quiet, but affa happy life is – as well as a delish, posho meal – my grandchildren coming for a sleep-over.

They’re due tomorrow and already my fridge, freezer and cupboards are stowed-oot wi’ a’ the food and drink they like, in a bid to avoid that disaster scenario when you ask: “What do you fancy for tea?” and they say something you don’t have and canna even be delivered.

Been there, suffered the agony of being a Bad Nana. The rest of it’s just good fun. But it wisnae aye thus.

When my first grand-Toot was born in 2011, I couldnae wait to hae her to masellie for 24 hours.

Asks my quine: “Are you sure you’ll manage?” I was outraged by the audacity. Hadn’t I coped admirably with the delights of her and her twin brother, born prematurely at a tiny four pounds each?

Even though her dad used to send me to the bottom of the garden so I wouldn’t hear her crying as he ‘‘trained” her to sleep? (Worked a treat.)

Anyone who’s had twins kens there’s usually an ‘easy’ een and a …nother. My loon would lie happily and coo to himsellie on a cushion while his sister needed to be in somebody’s bosey – preferably moving – at all times.

Mind you, come that first baby ower-nighter, when they dropped my bonnie grand-babe off and drove awa’, I did get a tingly: “Can I do this?” feeling in my sphincter.

You see I knew that, since her birth a pucklie months afore, she was known for her long-eyelashed beauty, but nae for her proclivity for sleep, nor even silent awakeness. Get my drift?

This bairn – exactly like her mummy before her – liked to be centre-stage, constantly shooshed aboot on somebody’s shooder.

Me wie’ a bad back, the shooshin’ wisnae on for long. So I’d try to tire her ootski with play, then cuddled into my arms, then slidin’ her gently, surreptitiously, into the cot afore her tired wee eyes kint fit was happening. Nae chunce. The moment her heidie hit the mattress, she wis wide awake and girnin’ to be up.

Maybe I should have left her to cry. Couldn’t do it with my ain, so deffo not with the grand-bawler. After all, she’s not really yours.

Suffice to say, most of my over-nighters with my first grand-born were spent wheelin’ her aboot in her pram, later push-chair, in my hall, singing Brahms Lullaby in the original Deutsch I’d learned at school – “Guten Abend, Gute Nacht, mit rosen bedacht.”

Up and doon so much the wheel marks can still be seen on the hall carpet about a decade on. Finally, she’d drop off, I’d whisk her into the cot, and collapse into a greasy spot.

Three years later came our beloved next one.

The same old Brahms Lied to get him to sleep as well as the hurly in the hall, but nae as often. Yet, aye complications.

Bought twin beds for them when they were older. He loved his, she not hers. Regularly crept into my bed in the middle o’ the night to snuggle up.

(Fit Nana couldnae be happier?) Rich tea biscuits dunked in tea as oor early-morning, in-bed treat.

These days, when they stay overnight, we sometimes sing that Brahms Lullaby together, word perfect. Then get stuck into a long game of Scrabble before they tootle off to bed and zonko pronto. Happy, happy days.


Moreen Simpson is a former assistant editor of the Evening Express and The Press and Journal, and started her journalism career in 1970

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