Last week I met my newest grandchild, a healthy 8-pound girl born just 10 days before.
She is, of course, cute as a bug, burping appropriately and opening her eyes in wonderment a lot.
I cradled her in my arms and ferried her around a large backyard and garden area. Somewhere between the rows of kale and an apple tree, I realized holding her was triggering a massive cascade of deja-vu, recalling time spent with my four now-grown children and my three other grandchildren.
When my first granddaughter was born two and a half decades ago, she spent several days per week with my wife and me while my daughter trundled off to her job — six weeks after the birth. For two years she was dropped off early in the morning with bags of pumped breast milk, spending the day with us until her mom got off of work. We often wheeled her over to the university where we taught journalism classes. She sat in her baby carriage at the front of the classroom, often nodding off when we lectured. She was the perfect first grand baby. The students found her snoozing amusing and were probably jealous they couldn’t do the same.
When I worked in my home office, she often sat in my lap while I did telephone interviews with California politicians and public figures. When she started walk, we would take little strolls around the neighborhood. Those little strolls became exponentially longer as she learned numbers. She would spy a number etched in the sidewalk, or on the side of houses, street signs and license plates. She insisted we stop and admire them. She was particularly fond of the number 3.
Ditto for when she learned colors. When we went outside on sunny days she would look up, stop walking and announce “Blue!”
Seeing the sophisticated infant paraphernalia for my newest granddaughter set my mind spinning about my oldest son’s early years and what we used. He was just three months old when we drove from Jamestown to Northern California in 1970, before there were seat belt laws. His car seat was a flimsy plastic baby chair, secured with screws to the lid of a wooden box between the bucket seats of my ancient VW bus. His baby carriage doubled as his bed for most of the first year of his life. When he was about 2 years old, I cut the legs off a high chair and strapped the seat on the back of my rickety bicycle for him ride in. At the time, infant bicycle seats were still some inventor’s yet-to-be-built fantasy.
The rush of child-rearing memories were eclipsed when my newest granddaughter began to wriggle in my arms. I reached back to my early parenthood and grand-parenting tool bags to soothe her. I didn’t want to hand her back to her parents yet. I was enjoying myself way too much.
So I sang to her as I walked, remembering the classic “C is For Cookie” from Sesame Street, at first drawing a quizzical look from her. Then she burped, sighed and closed her eyes. Success!
I ran through my short list of children’s tunes. She opened her eyes slightly each time I stopped singing and walking. I resorted to a few soft rock ‘roll songs. She seemed to like Jimmy Buffet but was less impressed with Barry Manilow. Then I remembered my now-adult granddaughter had liked: “I Can’t Smile Without You.” So I gave it my best shot and her eyes closed.
Voila!
With all the turmoil in the world today, holding my 10-day-old granddaughter was exactly what I needed. But I better expand my song repertoire for our next walk through the garden.
Fitzgerald has worked at six newspapers as a writer and editor as well as a correspondent for two news services. He splits his time between Valois, NY and the Pacific Northwest. You can email him at Michael.Fitzgeraldfltcolumnist@gmail.com and visit his website at michaeljfitzgerald.blogspot.com
WRITE ON: The newborn-baby time machine
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10.11.2023
Last week I met my newest grandchild, a healthy 8-pound girl born just 10 days before.
She is, of course, cute as a bug, burping appropriately and opening her eyes in wonderment a lot.
I cradled her in my arms and ferried her around a large backyard and garden area. Somewhere between the rows of kale and an apple tree, I realized holding her was triggering a massive cascade of deja-vu, recalling time spent with my four now-grown children and my three other grandchildren.
When my first granddaughter was born two and a half decades ago, she spent several days per week with my wife and me while my daughter trundled off to her job — six weeks after the birth. For two years she was dropped off early in the morning with bags of pumped breast milk, spending the day with us until her mom got off of work. We often wheeled her over to the university where we taught journalism classes. She sat in her baby carriage at the front of the........
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