My first month as the daycare provider for my granddaughter has ended and, so far, she appears unscathed.

At 4 months old, little Charlie is past the newborn inertia that a friend calls “the slug phase.” She makes eye contact and smiles engagingly while gyrating her limbs like some latter-day flapper girl. She emits a variety of mysterious sounds that I’m convinced is her version of the old Helen Reddy “I Am Woman” feminism standard.

But because the baby hasn’t yet fully honed head-and-trunk control, she’s most frequently in a holding pattern, a virtual captive in my arms who is subject to my vocal rants on a vast range of subjects, from recent political conventions to last month’s Olympic performances.

Since we have much in common — missing teeth, bib-dependency and hair newly emerging in previously bald places — I share things with Charlie that have been denied to others. For example, she’s been privy to the animal imitations I prepared for the talent portion of my high school’s beauty pageant but never got to deliver because I wasn’t nominated for the competition.

My husband, Fred, is besotted with our new baby boss. He refers to her as “Rasputin” because she has a floppy larynx that causes a croaky, rasping sort of respirations. He makes up songs for her along the lines of, “I love you drooley, drooley dear.”

He’s my full partner in attending to Charlie’s needs and since our parenting skills are both rusty and outdated, practically everything she requires represents a two-person operation. During diaper changes, he provides amusing commentary, likening her waste products to everything from axle grease to moray eels. When I feed her the cereal recently added to her diet, he may chant, “Rice is nice; it’s better than lice.”

We’re under orders from Charlie’s parents to watch no TV when she’s in the house — a mandate that, for Fred, is tantamount to withholding oxygen. So we go on little outings and no longer are as rattled as to lock the keys inside the house as we did on our first foray.

Sometimes, we head to the Riverpark where Fred can sneak in some fishing. Occasionally, we’ll go for a stroll at a nearby track where the regulars recently included Nita, a speedster who wears what looks like a bulletproof vest, and a man who totes trendy gear like a pedometer, a pager and an iPod but walks in knee socks and wingtip shoes.

It’s not exactly the gadabout retirement I once envisioned where I take piano lessons, refinish furniture and enjoy spontaneous romantic encounters at midday. I’d thought that, when I left the working world, I’d sleep late and my house would always stay tidy.

Instead, every room is littered with small, wheeled devices that look jolly until I trip over them in my slumber-deprived stupor. Baby bottles now occupy the cabinet space once reserved for wine glasses.

But I’m taking a cue from some inspiring grandmother role models.

Charlie’s other grandmother, “Noni,” stages fun contests for her brood of nine grandchildren, such as spitting watermelon seeds into Tupperware bowls. My mother used to save up “pulleybones” from chicken so my sons could have multiple tug-of-wars for wishes whenever they visited; she also kept a wooden spool in the soap dish so she could blow bubbles for them when they bathed in the tub.

What I’ve learned from both these women, but may actually have already known, is that childhood is too fleeting to bother with such adult concerns as exhaustion and clutter. And already I can sense that Charlie may have the potential for many future suitors.

That’s why I’m schooling her in the mantra she’ll recite to ward off any such proposals. Among her first words will be, “Thank you for your kind invitation, but I’d rather go to Grandma’s”