MORE GRANDMAS AND GRANDPAS ACT AS MOM AND DAD

Katie Schnell loves running through the park. At 2 1/2, she's mastered climbing the stairs to the slide and loves to be pushed in the swings.

She lives a life with a lot of love and caring from her grandparents, whom she calls 'Mom' and 'Dad.'

Chris Schnell, 56, a history professor at Southeast Missouri State University and his wife Phyllis, 45, have raised Katie since she was 9 1/2 months old.

The Schnells have physical custody of the toddler and the Division of Family Services has legal custody of her.

The couple gained custody of Katie when their daughter, her natural mother, was going through some hard times. The child's father is not in the picture.

"She sees her natural mother once a week at supervised visitation and we try to get her (Katie) to call her mom 'Mom' too," Chris said.

The Schnells said they hadn't planned to be parents again at their ages, but "Our first priority is to take care of Katie and make sure she's safe," said Chris. "People say that it will keep you young, but it really keeps you tired, most of all," he said.

Phyllis, a health care coordinator at Cottonwood Treatment Center, said, "We deal with all the messes, like peanut butter on the wall. But I find myself more relaxed with Katie and doing things that I might not have done with the other kids, like playing in oatmeal and stuff like that."

Chris said he tried to get Katie to call them 'Grandma' and 'Granddad', but it didn't work. "It's just a fact of life and you just have to give her the love and let her call you whatever she wants to call you so that she can go through life as normally as possible."

Phyllis doesn't mind. "It makes me really happy when I come home from work or she comes in the room and says, 'Hi Mama.'

"We definitely deal with the emotional aspects the best we can," she said.

The Schnells have two other children still at home: Jennifer, 17, and Joseph, 12, who said "She's great, but she makes you tired," as he ran after Katie on the playground.

"Joe is like her big brother, more or less," Chris said. "He's taken with her really well and helps us out tremendously because we get worn out with her. I think that even if I were 26... I'd be worn out easily. She's a pistol."

Many grandparents, suddenly finding themselves parents again, feel that they have to completely rearrange their lives to include a new child in the home, but the Schnells said they have worked to provide the best for everyone.

"I think it's been a little hard on the older kids because they've seen so much of the focus on Katie," Phyllis said.

"One of the biggest struggles was having to incorporate an infant into our lives," Chris said.

"Her mother was gone and Joe and Jennifer were at the ages where we could pick up and go when we wanted to. Now we have to make arrangements around Katie. And not too many of our friends have to worry about finding a babysitter anymore," he said.

Flexible schedules help, he said. "I'm fortunate because I can take her to daycare and pick her up around my teaching schedule. Things have been working out really well and everyone at work has been very understanding."

Another concern of grandparents raising grandchildren is the financial bind that many are placed in. Some, with failing health and little retirement savings, are finding themselves worrying about money.

"Both of my parents and her parents are getting to the ages where we may be called in to help with them," Chris said.

"It's really coming at us from all directions financially and emotionally," he said. "I just want to make sure we have the money to take care of everything when we get there. I'm not sure how long I'm going to work or how long Phyllis plans to work. We haven't even talked about retirement that much."

What does the future hold for Katie?

"I know one of the things that we get concerned about is how do we explain all of this to her later?" Phyllis said. "She's happy and we're what she knows as a family. It's a big fear of what would happen if they removed her and gave custody back to her mother."

Her husband agreed. "We worry about it," he said. "But I'm not going to spend my life worrying about it. The state always tries to put the child with the mother, but sometimes that's not the best situation. In the meantime, Katie is growing up in a happy and healthy environment."

"We'd still be concerned just as much as we are now if she ever returned to living with her mother," Phyllis said. "It's no different than if someone came to take one of our kids away."

Though the couple is committed to Katie, they worry about what's going to happen 20 years down the road.

"I'm not quite sure how to look at the future," Chris said.

At 54, he had a new baby in the house. "When you think about her going to college, you add 21 to 54 and that's 75 years. And being a professor, I know they don't graduate at 21, so you add a few more years and that puts me at 77 years old," he said.

Still, "We deal with the problems as they come up," he said. "I believe that it's God working in our lives and that's why things are great. I really do. So I don't worry about the future and take it one day at a time."