Wendyl Nissen: Nana needs a nap

I have a vague memory of picking my toddlers up from overnight stays at my mother's house and wondering why she refused to get up off the couch.

As she remained stubbornly stretched out we would gather up our children and my father would see us to the door while she waved weakly from her prone position, clutching smelling salts. Actually she didn't have any smelling salts but the image is much better with them in it.

I used to think that my mother simply did not get off the couch for anyone after noon but now I know that this is what grandmothers do. And they do it because they are completely exhausted.

Our bodies, having had 20 years off changing nappies, playing hide and seek, pushing strollers and lifting a heavy toddler up and down several hundred times a day, quite naturally go into shock and shut down when they are required to do it again.

I was in just such a prone position last weekend when our granddaughter was picked up after a 24-hour stay. While she performed what can only be interpreted as a delightful haka on speed at the welcome sight of her returning parents, I found myself doing a very good impression of my mother 20 years ago.

"Everything all right?" her parents inquired thoughtfully as I grudgingly moved my feet up the couch to make room for them to sit down.

"Wine?" I responded, instructing the adult nearest the kitchen to get glasses and a bottle. That happened to be my husband, who was still standing, despite having done the lion's share of lifting, bending and chasing our toddler.

I let him see them to the door.

"Another wine?" he suggested on his return.

Which is how we ended up a mere two hours later at a party down the road doing our own version of a haka on speed, only we were on the wine, which made for a slightly messier rendition. One of us may have fallen over at some point. One of us may have also got involved in far too many conversations involving the word "me" and the phrase "did I tell you about me?".

One of us may have also been less than gracious to a guest she didn't like very much (coincidentally also a grandparent) and might have caused a scene involving what she thought was witty and cutting repartee, but would most likely have emerged as little more than the ravings of a very tired grandmother, had the grandfather not dragged her away in the nick of time.

As we stumbled back home through the neighbourhood in the early hours I wondered out loud how one person, namely myself, could morph so efficiently from adoring and attentive grandma to tragic middle-aged woman walking into a hedge in just a few hours.

"Bacon," my husband said as he veered off to Foodtown leaving me to walk into hedges on my own.

I was relieved there were no children at home to witness my arrival as I stumbled up the steps, having lost my husband and gained someone's herb garden in my hair.

"No bacon," my husband said, coming up behind me, distraught. "Sausages in the fridge."

As he proceeded to cook a feast only a rugby team could do justice to, we realised that what we had just witnessed was a rather extreme reaction to having a toddler in the house again.

Over the 24-hour period we had revisited those endless hours, days and years when we were slaves to our babies. Never letting them out of our sight, feeding and entertaining, worrying and wondering, our antennae set to full power for maximum reaction and immediate attention. And then suddenly we were free again. Free to be those crazy old people we have now become who can pretty much do whatever we like, when we like, how we like.

"I miss her," my husband mumbled as we went to bed, both pausing to look at her empty cot, her teddy lying discarded in one corner, a single sock left behind in the other.

"Me too," I winced as I tried to get into bed without something aching, not sure if the strenuous baby care or the hedge was to blame.

"Need more babies. Must get the kids on to it," was the last thing he said before snoring his way through what was left of the night.