Grandparenting in Situ

The last few days, as did our two weeks in December, have given us a taste of being grandparents on the east coast.

Thursday we drove to Laura's in Gladwyne, Pennsylvania.  We timed it well; there were no problems once we got past the traffic lights on Route 1 in Princeton.  We were greeted enthusiastically by the kids when they got home.  A proudly held up four fingers to make sure we knew how old he was. Our 6th grader J was my height! R was very interested in "The Children's Bible" written by her mother at age 6--one of the many things I saved from my purging in South Bend.


Jim threw many pitches to S in the backyard with Laura's lovely flowering trees in the background.  One drawback--Jim did have a sore shoulder that night.  We had a great early supper prepared by G, the nanny, and then we took S to his baseball practice--a complicated route to Wynnewood guided by our iphones.  S kept up a steady conversation about his dad's new car and all its features.   When S got in the car afterwards, I told him how much we enjoyed watching him.  He observed that he saw that we were not always watching!  I admitted to having each of us walk a bit to stay warm.  Laura says he does not miss much!

I was so touched when just before we left, S was calling "Grandma" and he wanted me to see the laminated Venn diagram saved from my visiting his kindergarten tea three years ago.   We had recorded ways kindergarten was the same and different when I was young.

Then last night we went to M's studio jazz band presentation--just a short 20 minutes but he was featured as a trombonist briefly and it had me grinning a lot!  M got a ride home well after 11 pm after doing lightboard for the event and is still sleeping in this morning.  Jeff and Susan were able to leave him and go to James' choir concert in Troy, New York.  This may be our audition for their leaving M for a week in order to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary in Hawaii where Susan has a conference in the fall.

This is why I wanted to move to Princeton and it was a good reminder of that!