Yesterday I attended my youngest grandson’s preschool graduation, an event both exciting and bittersweet. For the past four and a half years, both sets of grandparents have tag-teamed caring for him while his parents work. It seems like it has taken no time at all to go from bottle-feeding, diaper-changing, and naps to walking, talking, and telling me everything he knows about the solar system.
The Gift of Time
This sense of swiftly speeding time is the gift of grandparenthood. From raising their parents, we know how quickly children grow. We know to savor each phase of childhood. For the most part, we’re at a place in life where we can take things at a child’s pace. The time it takes to watch a roly-poly cross the sidewalk. Reading If You Give a Mouse a Cookie one more time (because you never know when it’s going to be the last time). Performing a nose transplant on Pooh Bear because “someone” kept chewing on it.
But the Times are Changing
I used to carry his school stuff into his twice-a-week preschool, his small hand in mine. This year he shouldered his backpack, while I carried the nap mat with Pooh Bear tucked inside, reminding us of when Pooh ate too much honey and got stuck in Rabbit’s door. I will miss the school morning routine: marveling at how his mother, a teacher has broken down dressing himself into manageable steps, cooking breakfast together, making Gwama and Gwampa’s bed with Gwampa, and the finishing touch—standing on the stepstool in front of the bathroom mirror for his grandfather to comb his hair, intoning my husband’s lifelong motto, “Look sharp, feel sharp, BE sharp!”
On to New Adventures
In the fall, Pooh will stay home while my grandson embarks on the adventure of kindergarten. And while I’ve been a bit weepy lately as this precious season comes to a close, adventure is beckoning me, too. Stories that wait to be discovered, books that long to be written, and more time, dear readers, to write them.
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