"You blinked again," accuses my dear husband.
***
Just a few months ago when my younger grandson's age was measured only in weeks, I noticed that he rarely blinked. As I held him, comforting him as he seemingly resisted easing into sleep, "Why does this child not blink?" went through my mind. A few minutes later I gently placed him in his crib and hurriedly scrambled to my IPad to google a query about infants and eye-blinking. It turns out that infants, in fact, do not blink very often at all. Who knew? Well, actually probably a lot of pediatricians, eye specialists and such knew this, but I didn't and I'd raised three children. But, I always felt that my grandparenting skills are far more acute than my parenting skills were back in the day.
***
"Believe me, Hon, I try my best to never blink."
***
My first grandchild, lives almost exactly 1,000 miles away, via the U.S. highway system, which is usually how we travel to visit him and his younger sister. He used to live just 14 miles away. Fourteen miles! Did I appreciate this proximity at the time? You bet I did. From the moment each grandchild was born, I have treasured each as the rare gems they are and tried to spend a reasonable amount of time in their young lives, without being an overbearing pain-in-the-neck to their parents. "Be helpful and not a hindrance to the parents" was my mantra (in other words: Keep your yap shut and don't offer a single word of advice unless your opinion is specifically requested.) Anyway, it seems to have worked for me.
>-Blink-<
One day, when I was ten years old, I was walking on a sidewalk in the Uptown neighborhood of Chicago, when I stopped stock-still with the thoughts: Where will my future take me? and Will I remember this exact moment of standing on the block, where I live, and being ten years old? Where will I be at the age of twenty? Gosh, that seems so awfully long from this moment. Where will I be at the age of thirty? forty? fifty? Will I even live to be sixty?
>-Blink-<
We are married with two young children in a two-bedroom apartment, toys splayed across our living room, as we pour through newspapers looking for houses for sale in the area. Dear husband walks toward me with a listing, "Hey, look at this one! It's not far from here, it looks perfect and it's in our price range." As he holds the paper forth, he trips over a toy, shakes his head and laughs, "How did this happen to us? How am I tripping over toys that belong to my children? How am I looking to buy a house? It seems just yesterday I was a single man and I just met you. In a blink, the time has passed."
>-Blink-<
I join a "baby playgroup" after the birth of our third child. A mother with older children comments, "Well, Dan and I have reached the half-way point of our time living with Matthew," (her, then, nine-year-old son.) I do a double-take, "I'm sorry, I don't-" She explains, "Well, if Matt goes to college at the age of eighteen, as we plan, he probably won't return home after graduation, because he'll get a job. So, logically, the age of nine is the half-way point of his life spent residing with us."
>-Blink-Blink-Blink-<
"Hey buddy, Grampy and I are going to be selling our house in the city and moving to that house we bought out in the country. I need to work on getting the city house ready to sell, so I'll only be coming over once a week from now on."
He looks surprised and quickly says, "Okay, but you'll always come one day a week, right? Always once a week, right?"
>-Blink-<
"Do you want Grandma to tuck you in?"
"No, I'm fine."
He must notice the surprise on my face, as I once noticed it on his.
"Well, okay sure, you can tuck me in."
"I guess you're getting too old for this." As I plump up his pillows and rustle his thick hair I ask, "Hey, do you remember back when it was time for your nap that we used to play a game about a mouse with a magic eraser, who could make any mess, or dirt disappear?"
"Um, no."
"Oh well, that was a long time ago. Anyway, if we made a mess when we were playing and forgot to put the cushions and toys away or we tracked sand into the kitchen, or forgot to wipe the dog's muddy feet, the mouse would wave his magic eraser and restore everything back to neat and clean." I make the gesture he made with his hand as he played the important role of the mouse.
"Wait! I think I do remember that," he says laughing.
As I walk from his room it is not lost on me that he is now nine years old.
>-Blink-<
I sing a litany of songs to my newest grandchild, whose age is now measured in months, as he begins to doze off for his nap. Every single time I get to the last part of "Puff the Magic Dragon," he fusses. A couple of times, when I get to this part of the song, he sleepily waves his arms as if shooing something unpleasant away. He does this with no other song. It's the part of the song that goes:
A dragon lives forever, but not so little boys
Painted wings and giants's rings make way for other toys.
I mentally delete this song from my list of nap-time songs, thinking maybe the baby hears sorrow in my voice, or something.
>-Blink-<
We took the older two grandkids to see a movie and in the theatre's long series of trailers, was a preview of "Pan," a re-make, of sorts, of the tale of Peter Pan. It's a story I never much cared for, either as a child or as an adult. (Although I did like the part where Wendy gets separated from and reattached to her shadow.) Barrie's touching inspiration for the story came from the death of his older brother and its devastating effect on his mother. Anyway, we all know that as much as we sometimes wish to figuratively "freeze" children so we can watch them age in some kind of slow motion, that it would be selfish to do so. Even if it seems as though children grow with the ferocity and tenacity of weeds, weeds germinated and sprouting forth in warm, rich, loamy soil, weeds fertilized and well-watered, weeds upon which the sun ever casts its rays of energy, weeds...
>-Blink-<
"Dear, I think you blinked again. It's 2015. Happy New Year."
"Yes," I sigh, "I'm pretty sure I did blink."
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