Just got back from spending time with my newest grandson and his family. Alex, or Number 14 as his Grandpa affectionately calls him, arrived last week and is simply a bundle of sweetness. Yes, as with all newborns he brings with him the clichés we immediately think of about newborn babies: minimal sleep for the parents, almost constant nursing for mom, fragile body, strong lungs and those teensy tiny diapers. But in the big picture those things don’t last long, and when they are gone so is the soft, mewing sound only a newborn can make, the delight of seeing those eyes focus on you for the first time, tiny fingers and tiny toes, and the softest skin imaginable.

His big sisters are excited to have him home and want to hold him more often than they get to. Emily loves it when he is sweetly contented in her arms; Molly is ready for him to play with her but for now has to settle for setting up a school where he, Big Baby and two American Girl dolls learn how to prepare for hippos. You just never know.

Best use of vacation days ever, to live out of their guest room for a week and be a part of the daily delightful madness that is a home with three young children. Morning snuggles when they wake up and come to Grandma’s room. Bedtime reading Brave Girls of the Bible, Emily’s current fave. Pancakes for breakfast. Popcorn with a TV show. Screen time with an ipad and an android tablet where I learn more about Slugterra and Subway Surfers, Talking Angela and Minecraft. Admiring the latest Lego creation. Holding the baby and kissing his soft hair and sweet face. Time with my beautiful daughter, talking about cooking and home schooling and furniture arrangement and mosquitos and, of course, Alex. Friday night pizza with them, my son and his, enjoying every moment of my children in the same room, busy schedules set aside for the moment, sharing and laughing and being together while their children played. Generational love.

The morning it was time to leave I put on my big girl face for goodbye hugs but freely admitted there would be some booing and hooing on my drive home. Hugs. Molly escorting me to the car, then my watchful eye making sure she went back into the house not on a sudden neighborhood adventure.

Driving away, I thought about the closeness I am blessed to share with my grandchildren and how our relationships grow as they do. I also noticed a twinge in a back muscle if I turned a certain way, and soreness in my bum knee if I bend it too far. Aches and gains. Short term pain, long term love. Totally worth it.