on encountering small persons
May. 22nd, 2018 02:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ruthct21In the last couple of weeks, I have seen 5 of our 6 grandchildren, one for the first time!
Mick and I had planned to go to Cambridge to see our friend Colin, who was very ill, but actually we missed the opportunity to say goodbye to him. We went anyway and spent a pleasant afternoon with his widow, Joye, who seems to be coping very realistically. We'll be going again in a few weeks for the celebration of his life.
We spent the evening with my daughter Rachel and her two sons, plus my son Jonathan. I've been used to the older boy, Charles, moving off to the computer when the adults start talking, but this time he stayed around and interacted with quite a lot of what was being discussed.
As soon as Nick, the younger boy, came in, he marched over to me and said 'Why did your friend die?' I was taken aback for a moment but it seemed to me that if he could ask the question he was entitled to an answer, so I gave him a brief factual explanation and added 'If you want more information. ask your Mum'.
Early the next day, we took the train to London with the intention of having lunch with Mick's daughter Rebecca, partner Mark and new baby Freddie. Rebecca and Freddie were still waiting to be discharged from hospital, when we arrived there with bags of food, and at first the staff on the desk wanted to send us away but I explained that we had come to help them go home, so we were reluctantly admitted. After a lot of faffing and fussing and false starts, we carried stuff downstairs to the car: they set off for their flat and we went to catch a bus to join them there.
Freddie was 3.75kg/8lbs 3 ozs at birth, much smaller than my babies. He was charming and contented and happy to go to sleep when held. I found that I still remembered how to eat one-handed while cuddling a baby, so Rebecca had the use of two hands to eat a much-needed meal.
A few days later, Freddie's cousins, Luis and Violet, came to lunch together with their parents, Mick's son Daniel and his wife Andrea. Strictly speaking, only Luis was going to eat lunch - Violet is still breastfed - but we knew that he likes roast chicken and vanilla ice-cream ( successively, not together ) like our other grandchildren. Although it seems only about 5 minutes since Luis was a baby, he is talking well, has abandoned nappies and will be going to nursery school later in the year. He is much more willing to listen to instructions and directions, but not necessarily willing to act upon them!
He demonstrated a characteristic I remember well from when my children were small: finding something innovative and irritating to do, which nobody has forbidden because it never occurred to them that anyone would do it! In this instance, it included putting a coin into an unnoticed slot in a door lock (the lock had to be taken to bits to retrieve it): and throwing stones into my potato-bags which, it has to be said, were standing on a gravelled area and just the right height for someone of his size to do this ..... I used to say doing things like this was a sign of high intelligence. It probably still is.
And what of Violet? She is sitting up now and pays close attention to people and places around her. She would much rather look out of a window or at the sky than be snuggled into someone's shoulder, although she is quite happy to be held. She was wearing a brightly patterned frilly dress and kept trying to nibble or suckle different bits of it. As she is still quite small, we were able to put her, in her seat, on the table so she could contemplate us all while we ate and make her own contributions to the conversation (mainly at the grunt stage).
The sixth grandchild, Sophie, older than all these, will be celebrating her birthday in a few weeks, with a party at the Cricket Club. I believe she is about to become a teenager, so I guess we have to look out for turbulence!
Mick and I had planned to go to Cambridge to see our friend Colin, who was very ill, but actually we missed the opportunity to say goodbye to him. We went anyway and spent a pleasant afternoon with his widow, Joye, who seems to be coping very realistically. We'll be going again in a few weeks for the celebration of his life.
We spent the evening with my daughter Rachel and her two sons, plus my son Jonathan. I've been used to the older boy, Charles, moving off to the computer when the adults start talking, but this time he stayed around and interacted with quite a lot of what was being discussed.
As soon as Nick, the younger boy, came in, he marched over to me and said 'Why did your friend die?' I was taken aback for a moment but it seemed to me that if he could ask the question he was entitled to an answer, so I gave him a brief factual explanation and added 'If you want more information. ask your Mum'.
Early the next day, we took the train to London with the intention of having lunch with Mick's daughter Rebecca, partner Mark and new baby Freddie. Rebecca and Freddie were still waiting to be discharged from hospital, when we arrived there with bags of food, and at first the staff on the desk wanted to send us away but I explained that we had come to help them go home, so we were reluctantly admitted. After a lot of faffing and fussing and false starts, we carried stuff downstairs to the car: they set off for their flat and we went to catch a bus to join them there.
Freddie was 3.75kg/8lbs 3 ozs at birth, much smaller than my babies. He was charming and contented and happy to go to sleep when held. I found that I still remembered how to eat one-handed while cuddling a baby, so Rebecca had the use of two hands to eat a much-needed meal.
A few days later, Freddie's cousins, Luis and Violet, came to lunch together with their parents, Mick's son Daniel and his wife Andrea. Strictly speaking, only Luis was going to eat lunch - Violet is still breastfed - but we knew that he likes roast chicken and vanilla ice-cream ( successively, not together ) like our other grandchildren. Although it seems only about 5 minutes since Luis was a baby, he is talking well, has abandoned nappies and will be going to nursery school later in the year. He is much more willing to listen to instructions and directions, but not necessarily willing to act upon them!
He demonstrated a characteristic I remember well from when my children were small: finding something innovative and irritating to do, which nobody has forbidden because it never occurred to them that anyone would do it! In this instance, it included putting a coin into an unnoticed slot in a door lock (the lock had to be taken to bits to retrieve it): and throwing stones into my potato-bags which, it has to be said, were standing on a gravelled area and just the right height for someone of his size to do this ..... I used to say doing things like this was a sign of high intelligence. It probably still is.
And what of Violet? She is sitting up now and pays close attention to people and places around her. She would much rather look out of a window or at the sky than be snuggled into someone's shoulder, although she is quite happy to be held. She was wearing a brightly patterned frilly dress and kept trying to nibble or suckle different bits of it. As she is still quite small, we were able to put her, in her seat, on the table so she could contemplate us all while we ate and make her own contributions to the conversation (mainly at the grunt stage).
The sixth grandchild, Sophie, older than all these, will be celebrating her birthday in a few weeks, with a party at the Cricket Club. I believe she is about to become a teenager, so I guess we have to look out for turbulence!
