2000-12-14 - 20:11 MST

December 14, 2000

Seasonal

Looks as if this will be a yearly thing, going to daughter's to spend Christmas and New Years. We have been there each year since they came back from their Sabbatical in Scotland. They probably will go next year again. It is habit forming, catching up on the doings of the grand kids and seeing how much they have grown in a year. It is surprising, if one is around a kid all the time, growth happened without notice until I started to talk to my boy and noticed that I was addressing his belt buckle. Or maybe you notice that your little doll of a girl is beginning to be shaped like a woman. Wow, where has all that quality time gone, how dare they grow up ?

Then my mind slides back to the first time I held a baby brought forth by Heather. How much I loved Heather as a new Mom, how unsure I was that I knew how to hold a baby without breaking it. Then, learning how to care for a baby that Heather already knew from her babysitting years, what an adventure it was. The baby began its trip to personhood, building its own character. For me seeing the baby's progress into comprehension was fabulous. To see on that little face and in those eyes the beginning of their understanding of things around them. How soon they recognize Mama and later on Papa. How much it moves me to see the sense of security and love that babies feel toward their parents.

Seems that our kids were into doing physical things before they could talk very well. I remember when each of our kids got to the adventuresome stage and caught hold of something and stood up, the triumphant look in their faces, the delighted gurgles from the baby when Mom or Dad clapped and cheered.

Then, those first hesitant, teetering, tottering steps with the suprising bum bop when gravity did strange things to them unexpectedly.

I reached a stage of total happiness when they, each one reached the age where we could talk to each other, when they liked to listen to stories while on your lap and in your arms. The piping questions of curiosity, why do the . . . . . what happens if . . . . . ?

There was a great surge of happiness in me when I would see one of our kids playing contentedly and civilly with neighbor kids. My overflowing heart almost leapt from my chest, I was so happy because it appeared to me that they would be true "Homo Sapiens."

There came a time when we would stand eye to eye and talk about adult things, a far cry from the time I would get down on my knees and talk to them at their level.

It is a surprising blow to the boy that he can't put one over on Pop, Pop's been there, done that, and tried for more long, long ago and pretty well knows what the boy is up to what boy's next ploy will be. Mom's intuition works overtime on her girls and she is a step ahead of them too, guiding their footsteps.

We watched them struggle with lessons through grade school, middle school and high school, helping a bit here and there, maybe just being moral support and a cheering section. Then with each one there came a day, they knew when better than I, that the time had come to try their wings. They flew around the nest for awhile until they knew their strength and capabilities and it was off to college, a job or marriage, or maybe some combination of all.

A time or two one would return to the nest to nurse the wounds suffered while trying to learn how to be a grown up. But after a while, off they would go with regained confidence to a life -- their life.

Heather and I have been so fortunate that all our kids never grew away from us even though they are living independantly with their mates and raising their own families. We all stay in touch and get together for birthdays and special events -- especially when daughter and her family come in from Oregon on vacation -- wall to wall brothers and sisters.

Time permitting there will be lunches with one or more of the kids. Easter breakfast at the Village Inn by I-70 and Federal Boulevard with all in attendance, after a visit to the family graves at Crown Hill Cemetery. This Sunday will be a family Christmas party for Heather and I before we head out the next day for Oregon. Birthdays and Holidays have grown in our family that there seems to be one of something each month -- or more. So if one has only one kid, the seasons are somewhat far apart. But with us, it is always Seasonal . . . . . . . .

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