Thoughts on My Grandson

We just got back from being with our son, daughter-in-law, and grandson for a few days. Time spent with Grandson is very precious to me. He’s growing up so fast. He’s past the baby stage and is getting into the little boy stage. He can carry a conversation with me and ask questions that I’m able to understand—most of the time.
We played together, pretending to fly airplanes and drive cars. We ate pretend food and threw the ball back and forth. We watched cartoons and read books. We took some walks and played on the swing. It was wonderful! We went to the beach and played in the sand, building castles and donuts. He liked knocking things down rather than building them up. I felt a kid again except with a lot less energy. I couldn’t keep up with Grandson.
Grandson is also loud. He loves to yell and scream while playing before naptime and bed time. The more tired he gets, the louder he gets. It’s a good gauge of how much he needs to sleep. The problem comes when trying to get him to be quiet and go to sleep but his dad has developed a trick. He taught Grandson how to pretend snore. So we pretended to take a nap and Grandson would close his eyes and do his little snoring routine. The trick is that his eyes are closed which must make them heavier and heavier because in short order, he’s asleep.
Grandson loves to help do things. He accompanied his grandfather on several geocaching trips. He likes finding them and seeing what’s inside the containers. Sometimes the containers are only large enough for the log; those he calls “trash.” He loves to open the doors on their van (they’re the automatic kind) and push the garage door opener. He turns lights on and off for you and will fetch things if you ask nicely.
He’s not a big eater, much to his mother’s chagrin. He is thriving on peanut-butter-and-honey sandwiches, pizza, Cheerios, and chocolate croissants for the most part. His parents are working with him to try other things but he resists it. He drinks lots of milk and watered down apple juice. He’s a healthy, energetic, growing boy so it must be working for him. I tell his parents not to worry. All of my siblings and my kids grew up eating Cheerios and look out we turned out. His dad was a very picky eater too and grew up healthy in spite of it. Grandson is just taking after his father.
It’s hard to say good-bye when it’s time to leave. I never know when we’ll see him again and when we do, he’ll have grown a lot. But more than anything, I’m thankful for every moment with him. He’s blessed my life more than I can say.