Generations

Nothing lights me up in the way that spending time with my kids does. Michael and I are so grateful that we are fortunate enough to have the kids living nearby. So it's with some level of guilt that we take off for the winter. It was particularly hard to leave Chicago this winter because we'd be gone during the second trimester of Carrie's pregnancy. Sure, we had Skype, email, and phone calls to help us stay in touch, but nothing comes close to that hands-on contact that I was craving. We were so excited that David and Jolene and Carrie and Chris would be able to come and spend a long weekend with us in February.

By the time we got to the airport to pick them up, I was practically jumping out of my skin. And then, there they were, walking through the airport door into the bright Tucson sunshine. Carrie's blossoming belly preceded her, and the look on her face was so much "the cat that swallowed the canary." She was clearly so excited to show us how far she had progressed. It was the proud face of my little girl who had just completed a complicated project at arts camp or earned a spot on the traveling soccer team. Now she was a mom-to-be, incubating our grandson! Surreal, to be sure.

In typical Carrie fashion, before the sun set on their first day here, she generously whipped up her shirt and pulled down the panel on her pants to reveal "the bump," offering herself to us for full examination. Then she grabbed my hand and carefully guided it over her taut belly. "Here," she whispered. "Hold it here." Seconds later I felt the fluttery kick against my hand and then a light thump. A tiny drummer beating his own rhythm. Magic. Hi, baby. It's Grandma. I love you.

Our time together, just the six-and-a-half of us, was grand. We did some hiking, lots of laughing, and lots of eating! There was a lavish breakfast featuring french toast casserole and fresh fruit, a picnic on the road to Mt Lemmon where we assembled makeshift sandwiches and stuffed potato chips into our mouths, a BBQ brisket dinner in the comfort of home, a visit to In-N-Out Burger, a fancy dinner at Wildflower and more. We sat outside and read, we gathered in the kitchen to make loads of salsa and guacamole and then dove into them with fistfuls of chips. Through it all there was such good energy between us all. What a bonus it is that the kids all genuinely like each other. Everyone helped out with the cooking, the dishes, the food prep and the clean-up. I am so proud of this crew!

The weekend flew by, and though we are reluctant to leave the mountains and sunshine, we are drawn, as though by magnets, to return to the kids in Chicago.