“ I love Grandpa” she said as she hugged my neck. “That’s my Grandma” he said to a group of new found playmates. “No, Grandpa, that’s not how you do the booty dance”. Such are the heart warming and humorous words out of the mouths of babes – 3 of our group of 5.

Until a recent birthday, we actually had 5 grandchildren under the age of 5 years . Of course we had nothing to do with this achievement, yet get to reap the rewards of seeing little ones grow and change right before our eyes. Probably the only time I had ever been excited previously about the phrase “five under five” was a sandwich special offer at Arby’s. Before I get carried away with expounding on having 5 grandchildren – I am reminded that one of my younger brothers, who also has 3 daughters, currently has 12 grandchildren! You win Bro!

Watching little ones grow and change so rapidly at this stage of their development is delightful, amusing, tearful, life affirming, joyful, humbling, and….you can use all the adjectives. It is wonderful seeing one child come into a “phase” that the previous one went through not too long before. Seeing them notice their fingers for the first time, walk for the first time or use words for the first time just never gets old. Granted, we have seen all this before – we actually had to have children to now have grandchildren, so the development of a child isn’t new – but somehow much different. I think seeing our children now seeing what we saw in them brings an even greater joy . It’s not a “see what WE had to go through” tone but rather “See – look at the joys we got to experience”. We get to be the watchers in the process- watching a child grow through the greatest developmental years to school age.

I have found an insignificant number of times where I would be tempted to say the horrible, eye rolling words, “That’s not how we did it”! I guess not every parent would say this but my God, these kids are doing a super job! Our grandchildren appear to be turning out just fine. The memories once captured with our children are being demonstrated similarly in the next generation and we get to bathe ourselves in the joy all over again.

The paradox in all of this, and one I have mentioned in other blogs is that these memories that bring us such happiness daily are not ones that these little ones will ever have (other than the gazillion photos, Facebook entries and Instagram posts). They are ours alone – and trust me, they are so very special.