Baby

It has been quite the year for Patrick Sloan. This year the Brit became a new dad. And a new grandpa. Oh yeah, and he also became a new great-grandfather.

Yes, all in one year. In fact, the 60-year-old father (and grandfather and ... well, you get the picture) had all this awesome baby news come at him in a matter of months. Three months, to be exact.

So how did this all happen? You might want to take notes to keep up with this one.

Here's the deal: Patrick's wife, Joanne (who happens to be 21 years his junior at 39 ... and his second wife), got pregnant. Then Patrick's 35-year-old daughter Odette announced she had a bun in the oven. And not much later, it came out that Odette's 18-year-old daughter Fern was going to be a teen mom.

Now there are several generations raising kids all at once. Which can be a little awkward at times, but it has turned out to be lifesaving for me at times.

My dad comes from one of those huge Catholic families. That means that his youngest sister was a teenager when I was born. Now we're both moms of young kids -- in fact the younger of my two first cousins isn't even a whole year older than my daughter -- and I can't even count the number of times I've leaned on her. She's my aunt, but she gets where I'm coming from in ways that other older relatives don't because she's having the same experiences I am at more or less the same time. Not to mention the cousins have a lot of fun when we get them together. 

Congratulations to the Sloan family and their three new baby boys!

Do you know any multi-generational families raising kids at the same time? How does it work?

Image via { pranav }/Flickr