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When we were kids, my mother would buy me and my brother educational toys. Not just games that helped us with reading and writing, but things like erector sets, rock tumblers, chemistry sets, this thing that taught us about electricity and circuitry, magnets, etc. Plus, we always seemed to have a microscope or telescope around the house.

Even though neither of us went into careers that had anything to do with engineering, geology, chemistry, physics, biology or anything like that, I’m glad we were at least exposed to things like that as kids. Stephen knows how to use computers, but I wonder if I am not limiting his potential by not getting him the type of things my mom got for us. This is something that I have to think about.

I have four children (Jaymie, Jazmyn, Araya and Stephen), two surrogate children (Jessica and Billy) and one grand-daughter (Gabryale). I wear bifocals, have arthritis and more gray hair on my chin than on the top of my head. And yet the one thing that really makes me feel old is a conversation I had with my mother where she told me that she might be retiring next year. I don’t know why it makes me feel old, but it does.

This is a picture of my grandmother, my granddaughter Gabryale, my daughter Jaymie, my mother and me.  It was taken by my other daughter Jazmyn on Thanksgiving 2008.  I have no idea why it was datestamped 6/16/2007.

This was the first time that Gabryale had met my mother and grandmother. At first she didn’t want to go to anyone but Jaymie (and begrudgingly to Jazmyn), but for some reason she wanted to go to my grandmother. After two minutes, she didn’t want to go anyone else.

My mother and grandmother had already been there for hours by the time the girls showed up and were ready to leave.  My mother works midnights and while she had already took a nap on my couch, she wanted to go home and try to catch a few minutes before she had to get up again.  However, I don’t think it worked out that way.

When my grandmother handed Gaby back to Jaymie, the baby started to cry and howl.  Her reaction to being separated from her great-grandmother took everybody by surprise. The only other time that I had ever seen her that upset was when I was holding her and she didn’t want me holding her.  She cried the tears of separation until my grandmother was no longer in sight.

She sniffled a little while and my daughters kept giving her a pacifier, which I immediately took out of her mouth every time and since she didn’t fight me about it, I guess I did the right thing. Finally she just looked at me for a while and let me hold her.

It occurred to me much later that I should have gotten a picture with Jazmyn and Stephen as well. OK, actually Patti had to point it out that I should have gotten a picture with Jazmyn and Stephen as well.

Overall, it was a pretty good night.