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"Don't expect us to be perfect"

The ideal grandparent is one with infinite patience and selflessness, but, of course, our parents are only human. That means they're not always cheerful, even around their grandkids, and they're not always willing to drop everything for them.

Before I had kids, I remember being surprised to hear that my father had yelled at my niece during the long drive to my house. Everyone got out of the car grumbling. "Her whining was driving me crazy," my normally jovial dad said. "You know Daddy has no tolerance for noise," my mother explained as she walked in behind him.

And, of course, many grandparents have active lives outside the orbit of their grandkids. This is why babysitting and how much grandparents are expected to do can be such a thorny issue in some families.

"I adore my grandchildren and have them over all the time, but I wish my kids understood that I need three or four days' notice to plan around the babysitting. I'm not going to give up my garden club just so they can meet a friend for lunch," says Thomas, who says, of course, she'll drop anything if someone is sick.

"We're jealous sometimes"
Even grandparents are susceptible to the green-eyed monster when it comes to "the others"  -- that corresponding pair of grandparents they're tethered to via the grandchildren. Recently, my mother confided in me that she heard the other grandparents of one of my nieces were giving her a big chunk of money for college. "I thought for an instant maybe we should be doing that too," she says. "But then I think how much we do with our grandkids and remember that it's all right."

This type of jealousy doesn't have to be a problem. In the case of grandparents who live in vastly different tax brackets, it's a good idea to set a limit on gift giving, whether on the number of gifts or the amount spent. Otherwise, the less well-off grandparents may feel they can't compete with their fat-checkbook counterparts.