If you simply want to move (to a drastically different environment) to be able to see a future grandchild frequently, go for it! But caring for grandchildren is tiring. I am 72 and physically in pretty good shape. I watch my granddaughter ONE day a week (she’s 3 now but this has been going on for 2 1/2 years) and at the end of the day I am tapped out. If you and your wife would be full time sitters and your son and his wife are dependent on you, think it through. Just my two cents, of course.

Best wishes to you both,
Cindy

Vets make good money, so they can hire a nanny if needed, visiting with a grandchild is one thing, babysitting for them daily is another with your health issues is totally another.

I would not jump at this opportunity.

By all means, move if you want to be close to family and Mayo, but please don't sign on for fulltime child care!

Eight years ago, I shared care of my infant grandson with another "grandma" - her best friend's Mom. Neither one of us was up to full-time care for an infant, then toddler, even then. I love my "littles" to pieces, and love spending time with them going on adventures, doing projects, reading, or just hanging out. They often ask to come over just to hang out with us.

Now, older & slower in my mid-70's, we care for our now 5 and 8 year-old boys, sometimes for several days at a time, even take them on trips. But it would be very difficult to do fulltime. And they are at an age to help with food prep and cleanup, dress and toilet themselves, put away their own toys, and are able to play by themselves or together for hours with basic oversight and refereeing.

Let me refresh your memory - babies, toddlers and little children need feeding 4 or more time a day, with the attendant preparation, coaxing, spills & cleanup. Then there are the schedules parents want you to maintain - naps, walks, tummy time, playtime - and modern childrearing ideas are not like you remember. And the endless changing of diapers and clothes, the crying and whining, the constant eyes-on when they are awake, the eternal picking up of toys. There are no lunch breaks, coffee breaks, uninterrupted phone calls or conversations. And when would you and your wife fit in your own appointments?

Maybe you could offer is "emergency" care when a regular caregiver is unavailable?
Also, have you spent a full year in Phoenix? The 6-month summers can be brutal.

I want to add to Volunteer Mentor Sue’s post- taking care of an infant, then toddler, involves a lot of bending and lifting in positions difficult to use good body mechanics, while holding safely onto what is essentially a dead weight, then a squirming dead weight, then a variably cooperative weight. Think- bending over the crib to lift in and out, in and out of the swing, in and out of the positioner (if they go with a floor model, now it’s lifting up and down from the floor). They’ll want you to do “tummy time” - now it’s you getting up and down from the floor, while holding a precious dead weight. Later, it’s in and out of the high chair (this is difficult- legs are always moving and you’ve got to thread them in and out). If you’re to take the child on walks in the stroller- there’s more bending and lifting from positions where you are leaning in and over with a dead weight.
If you are the one with more physical issues than your wife (we aging folks all have them), please protect her, don’t let her be saddled with a commitment which will necessarily be hugely hers, no matter how much you both want to and the kids want you to and now you feel guilty, etc, etc.
Please read Volunteer Mentor Sue’s reply again and again. I went for 8 weeks after each of 4 grandkids states away were born when I was mid to late sixties in age. It took a long time and a lot of PT to recover. I can’t imagine being signed up for years.

Not clear if your son is a horse vet in Phoenix, OR or Phoenix, AZ? With you already in OR (I´m in central OR), a move to Phoenix, OR would be very different from a move to Phoenix, AZ.
Saying you look forward to being a Mayo patient leads me to think you are considering a move to AZ because here in OR we´re pretty far from Mayo. Good luck and my best to you and your family.