Ezra is walking at least as much as he’s crawling now, but he can climb seemingly impossible things. He reminds me at once of his sister and his daddy when they were his age. Parenting a child learning to walk is more damage control than coaching but as they begin to comprehend more of our …
Swinging Together
“I want to do what I want to do,” announced Thomas, insistently, raising his voice above Amelia’s whines of protest. At four and three, the cousins, close as siblings, are at that age marked by power struggles. Both firstborn of two, they lead naturally. You might call them bossy and you wouldn’t be wrong. They …
What Sort of People?
“I need to open the window, Lolly. Mr. Leo and Mr. Noel are cutting grass. What kind of snack can we take them?” The rush of Thomas’s words matched his sprinting pace as he rounded the corner to the kitchen. He’d heard the mowers cranking and lost no time in getting into place for the …
Living Testimony
Some days it’s difficult to remember who I’ve talked to or where I heard something by the time Paul and I sit down to dinner. I’ve promised to pass along a message from one of our kids or I wanted to share an amusing story about one of the grandkids. I’m reminded of a childhood …
Use Your Words
Two of my grandchildren are celebrating birthdays next week. Ezra will be one and his sister Amelia turns three two days later. Ezra came home from the hospital on his sister’s second birthday. We’re experiencing a lot of firsts just this week with Ezra standing on his own and adding more words to his vocabulary. …
See the Snake
Blistering heat and palpable humidity has settled in to stay in my neck of the woods. Stepping outside is like walking into an oven, no, a sauna. I’m drenched within a minute. I’ll need to join the grandkids in the water sprinklers for the wet to actually be refreshing. The sun is shining fifteen hours …
Ask the Animals
One of my best investments of late has been renewing our annual zoo membership and taking my girls and our grandchildren to the zoo their parents visited as children. Some of the exhibits are different. The elephant enclosure now houses rhinos, there’s a splash pad in the garden during summer, and there is an aquarium, …
Let It Pour
Rain has interrupted our evening walks for more than half of the past two weeks. A drizzle would be fine. The cooling mist mingled with the humidity of the south is refreshing, but downpours that leave shoe deep mud in our yet ungraded land, though a wonderland for our toddlers and Great Dane, Jake, requires …
Pitfalls
When I have a chance to slip away to the beach with my family, we nail down the date and I begin to search for the perfect accommodations. Each time we rent, I am convinced that this will finally be the perfect fit. The only trouble is the grandchildren keep growing. None of them are …
No More Ice Cream
Hot and humid was the forecast for our zoo day so I promised my grandbabies soft serve ice cream after lunch. We stood in line behind half a dozen other patrons inching our way toward the ordering window. When only two people remained ahead of us, the worst happened. We saw the lone cashier, half …
A Fitting Reply 