“Where are you going, my little one, little one,
Where are you going, my baby, my own?
Turn around and you’re two,
Turn around and you’re four,
Turn around and you’re a [grown boy] going out of my door.” -Harry Belafonte, 1957
The grand-boys
Only four of my 10 grandbebes are of the male persuasion. Hunter, who is 10, is keeping score and wants everybody to work diligently on even-ing the tally a bit.
Gavin is 12, holding Oliver who was about 4 weeks here. Hunter is 10 and Kai, 2, did not want to be in a picture!
Kai is 2 – this is mostly about him…
Malachai spent the night last week when his parents were doing a concert in the Springs. He is two, in all its’ glory. He has shot up like a spring weed ready to take over the world. He has opinions and understands every single thing I say, even if I cannot quite return the favor. If a request I have made vexes him, he need only cover his eyes with his hands and slump his shoulders for Nonna to take it back {{No, no, it’s ok – you don’t have to put the toys away, Kai-Kai}}. If he’d like one more piece of candy (after too many, already), tilting his head a bit while drawing me into the liquid blue pool of his gorgeous eyes and jabbering away (saying something quite funny, which I know because he then laughs uproariously) is all it takes. Ok, one more…
Alright, I must interject here: he is soooooooo smart! Malakai randomly pointed to the Excel icon on my Mac a few weeks ago and said, “Oh, Nonna – X!” I was like, “Kai-how did you know that???” Whereupon, he jabbered a long paragraph of explanation in his own Pentecostal-toddler language before clearly and assuredly saying, “I know that!”
Then the other night Dave was wearing a Broncos shirt and the font was kind of scrolly-semi-cursive. Kai said, “Oh, Poppa: B-O-O,” pointing to the letters that were obvious. Can you believe that? He is TWO…and pretty much extraordinary! IMHO. ;)
Life is a vapor, people. James 4* was not kidding!
It is here and then, like a breeze just lifting a dry leaf and blowing it across the lines on the front walk, time is blown quietly way on down the road, section by section and everything has changed. And you wonder – how did we get here, already? You don’t notice it much day by day. But my little leaves, my darling grandbebes, are swirling and growing and each time I turn around, my breath catches and I wish, with eyes closed tight and fists clenched, I wish I could just stop time for a little while. Oh to love more, hug my bebes, kiss-kiss sweet cheeks and just soak in everything each one is right now, today.
But time marches on and there is nothing to stop it.
Gavin will be twelve soon. He was only 3 when I started writing here on the blog. So it is here I have wept and laughed and tried to put words to the depth of my love, the increased capacity to feel and rejoice that grandchildren have brought me.
“Being a mom was the most wonderful thing. Being a Nonna, I am completely undone.” ~From a post I did about Gavin, Hunter and Guini in 2007 SEE MORE HERE
And every now and again Kai says or does something and I remember Gavin or Hunter doing the exact same and it nearly knocks the wind from me to realize how fast that happened.
Gavin was building wooden block towers with Poppa just so very recently, wasn’t he? He was two, like, minutes ago…But now he texts me and we play games with our iPhones (he teaches me little tricks and secrets for using it). He seeks me out in crowds to give me very warm hugs and never leaves without kissing me good-bye, so thoughtful and grown-up. He was 2. Then a *snap of the fingers…Now he is almost 12.
Kai is 2 and I dare not look away, because he is also, I know now from experience, almost 10, nearly 12.
Where are you going my little one, little one…
Kai woke up at exactly 5:55 a.m. the morning he was here. Even though his mommy told me that when he does that you can tell him he has to wait until the sun is up high in the sky to get up, I didn’t want him to feel unheard or uncared for being in a different place. I went to him and picked him up with such great affection I thought my heart would burst. “I’m here, Malakai, Nonna is here.” Dragging his blankie along he reached for me, then wrapped himself around me securely. In the quiet I hesitated, memorizing this fleeting moment, this tiny sliver of space and time in which you know that you know you are fully loved and fulfilling your purpose exactly perfectly. He relaxed, then, and he felt the features of my face with his little hand in the early morning dark, “Nonna?” he asked, just to make sure.
Oh yes, I am, I thought. I’m your Nonna, baby boy. Let me hold you, let me carry you while I can. Let me love you and cheer you on and keep you safe and drink you in.
I brought him to our bed and placed him between us, his Poppa and me. He wanted to chat, but I whispered that we needed to wait until the sun was high in the sky. “High and ‘lellow’?” he asked. For “lellow” is his favorite color. It’s the color of his ultra-blond hair and his favorite cars and school busses and everything he loves the most. It’s the color of sunshine and it’s warm and happy and all the things Kai is to us.
Yes, bebe. Wait until the sun is high in the sky and bright lellow…
So he closed his eyes, he settled into plump pillows, his little feet resting against my leg. And as if my wish for making time stand still came true, a wave of deja-vu came over me: Gavin at not much older, in this same bed, he and I watching a Christmas movie. I kept drifting off and would be awakened with his little hand on my face, whispering, “Don’t go to sleep, Nonna – watch with me.” Then he would hold my face and look into my eyes making sure I stayed awake with him. I did.
And wasn’t it just yesterday little Hunter would spend the night and when I’d think he had gone to sleep finally, on a special bed right beside mine, I’d wake up to find him, head propped on his hands, leaning on his elbows, practically nose to nose with me – just watching me. When he saw my eyes were open, he’d ask, “Are you awake, Nonna?” He just wanted to chat, middle of the night or not.
The memories felt thick and real.
For a second I couldn’t tell what year it was, suspended in timelessness and love.
I opened my eyes to check. And there was Kai, looking right at me in the slowly increasing light. He whispered something about us waiting for the sun to get high and lellow. He was holding his blue blankie and his little ‘lellow’ motorcycle {aka Vroom-Vroom}. He took the tiniest corner of the blankie into his mouth. It’s his comfort, the way he deals with things. You’ll see him just barely, very gently bite the very corner. It’s his alone, his thing.
We looked at each other in silence for a little bit, me, mesmerized by his baby blues, him, just barely touching his teeth to soft blue fabric.
Then he offered it to me – the corner of his blankie. He extended it my direction. “Bite? Want a bite, Nonna?”
He was giving me all of his earthly treasure, sharing the deepest love he could possibly share. Even recalling it now, *melting…
He is two. But he is already almost grown, too, and the man God created him to be (so quickly). And I am not only undone, I am blown away at the power of the beautiful love of God through him.
Oliver is 7 weeks and 2 days old. Soon, so very soon, he’ll be two, too.
See his newborn pics by Stephanie HERE.
Photo by Stephanie www.maydae.com
Thanking God for my grand-boys, His little men, today!
*James 4.13-14
Wow, where’s the tissue? It is amazing how quickly they grow. I didn’t think it was possible until we had kids and now I just want to nail their rapid growth to the floor and force it to stop for a little while. Just long enough to memorize every minute detail of each new stage. Think I’ll be able to do it? Yeah, me neither…
Oh Baby. Tears and years. I said to someone the other day, it could be only 9-10 more years and we could be great-grand parents! How quickly it goes. Glad to see your blog vacation has ended. I missed your words.
That is the amazing part isn’t it.
Awesome, Jeanie. Enjoy and spoil them as much as you can. You are right, they grow up so fast.
What a loving post.
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