Old Toys for a New Generation

After taking Geri Ann to high school Thursday morning, Gerald just kept driving towards Illinois and arrived at Woodsong with beautiful weather here that afternoon. Very soon he had photos of all the family in Georgia printed and spread out on the family room coffee table.

This morning shortly before 5 a.m. after driving all night and taking her Gma Shirley down the road to her home, Tara arrived at Woodsong from her parents home in
Georgia with our only great grandchildren, Aidan and Maddux. Today we had chilly rainy weather. Gerald had been up since before 4 and had called her to make sure she was awake. (Gerald assumes that responsibility when he worries about family on the highway) Gerald told her he’d have our car slot in the garage open for her, so she would have a dry place to bring the children into the house.

When I heard Maddux crying because he was hungry, I knew they had arrived and hopped out of bed. Tara fed three-month-old Maddux and the two of them disappeared in the bedroom so Tara could get some sleep before driving on to the Chicago area. Aidan, who’d slept coming up, was going strong, and we fed him breakfast and enjoyed having him as our special guest while his mother and brother slept.

Before daylight with bright lights flashing, Gerald had given him a tractor ride much to Aidan’s delight. The rain prevented also riding the lawn mower or the “mule,” which Aidan was also hoping for. However, he is an agreeable and reasonable child and took that disappointment in good grace.

We soon rounded up numerous toys bought for earlier grandkids or else left behind by them and a couple that I remember buying at a rummage sale when his mother was born. In the bathroom, which he handles like a pro, he would not allow me to put on the little seat, which makes the stool opening a more appropriate size for someone not yet three. He assured me he could manage and he did.

Then he decided he would like to take a bath. So I pulled out our net sack full of accumulated toys and sundry plastic junk that our grandchildren have played with in the tub down through the years. I figure they are learning science as they pour water from one cup to another, watch the water come out the holes of the metal drainer planted with the toys, and they soon notice that some things float and some do not. I checked to see if he could count the plastic baby ducks he had caged in a plastic container that had once held produce from the grocery store. He could.

Later I showed him photographs of his mother when she was a baby. I am not sure he knew his mother had once been a baby. That was hard for him to believe. I understood. I have the same problem—except for me it is difficult to believe she is an adult with two precious children.

It was hard to see them heading up to their home in northern Illinois, but we knew Tara was eager to get there before dark. And we knew her husband was even more eager to see her and than boys than we were reluctant to see them go. The family grapevine kept buzzing until we knew Tara and the babies were safely home. I hope she sleeps good tonight.