Just home from the Learys

Exhausted, bedraggled from a long day of travel, but so grateful for these happy ten day--I arrived late yesterday afternoon to muggy SA and a dinner visit with Pam who picked me up.

I expected to fall asleep right away, but with the sound of wind and hail stirring outside, it took until midnight. I wrote a LONG  blog post (which I'm abbreviating this morning), watched the John-Stewart-replacement John Oliver (to whom the Learys introduced me)  to catch up on the news of the week, and sorted the mail.  Clothes are still all over the dining table.

Day and Tom
Celebrating their 20th anniversary in June

As a grandmother, I know that it's one of life's great pleasures to watch the evolution of little babies into people with their distinct interests and personalities. Remembering their infancy and observing them now as big kid and teenager is a bit like watching a Polaroid develop into a full-color image.

Jackson, my oldest grandson, has a learner's permit to drive and will be sixteen in October. His favorite class is music theory and he showed me on the computer how he builds music--which I found fascinating.  His career plan at the moment is to be an entrepreneur.

Even though he has many friends his own age, he and Marcus are "best friends" and he's an extraordinary big brother. After Marcus' first practice as goalie, he called to tell Jackson all about it, and I could hear Jackson saying, "Awesome, Buddy!" and giving him pointers for the next day's game.

Marcus (an affectionate Little Tom) likes video games, saxophone, movies (usually about aliens and superheroes), and making things--including word play jokes.  This visit, I loved watching him taking lots of cool photos with my camera. Both boys won their final lacrosse games of the week.

Here's my own little girl, their mom, 45 years ago:

Daisy at one

Day grew up to be an English teacher and artist. The senior class voted this week for Teacher Superlatives and she was the female part of the duo chosen as "Most like A Mom and Dad."  Before and after school, Jackson is now one of the ninth graders who hang out in her classroom!  

One of my favorite times of the Virginia days was after-school when Day told me about the challenges of being department chair and about what she's teaching her ninth grade honors classes.  Students now write their essays and turn them in on the computer, and she does all her grading online.  As a former English teacher who lugged heavy bags of essays-on-paper to and from my car on school days, I'd have a HUGE learning curve if I returned to high school teaching in the 21st century!

I was fascinated to look at the names on her class rosters: Bao, Baboo, Nesey, Akira, Parris, Raheel, Drateek, Nayeli, Zaurie, Yasmine, and Jelitza, just to name a few.

April 2017
almost always with a quilting project in her lap

Tom is one of the kindest and most patient men I know.  Here he is with his mom, Kathy, with whom I got to share three fun days grandmothering.  Kathy is a New Jersey mother of seven and grandmother to 18, and we'd not had a chance to visit since Paul's death four years ago.

On Thursday, Tom took a day off (he's president of HMSS and works with computerized medical records) and took Kathy and me to the African American museum in D.C.  He coaches Marcus' lacrosse team and attends all the games of both boys. Up early to swim, up late to work, he has incredible energy and strikes me as an old-soul daddy!