I used to see my grandson Adam every day. When he was less than a month old, he and his parents moved from their tiny New York City apartment back to the suburbs, and while they were house hunting, they lived with my husband and me.
Adam slept in a crib in his mom’s old room, while his parents slept a few feet away. They took care of him, but I did, too. He sat every morning in his baby seat in my kitchen. He played every afternoon in the family room. He gurgled and cooed and smiled and wailed and rolled over and discovered his feet and his hands.
A Little Bit Mine
And I watched and I listened and I memorized him.
And for five crazy, hectic, wonderful months, he was a little bit mine.
Even when he moved out, he didn’t move far, just two miles away. I still saw him and his mother almost every day.
That summer when he was new, just two and three and four months old, and his cousin Lucy, who is just 10 months older, was a baby, too, I bought a sturdy double stroller and pushed it all over town. Every day, I’d borrow the kids and walk to the library and the bakery, stopping to talk to everyone I met along the way. "Beautiful babies," people said. And I nodded and smiled. Sometimes the pair of them slept through these walks. Sometimes they looked around. Sometimes they looked around and cried.
It never mattered. That summer was the happiest. And then the next summer was the happiest. And then the next.
Caught by Surprise, Again
So how long did it last, this walking everywhere, this playing every day? How many summers did we have? Two? Three? I thought my grandchildren would stay babies longer, read board books and play with stack toys – no chapter books for them, not for a long, long time. How could I have believed this? I have kids. I know they grow up.
When my own kids were young, I would tuck them into bed at night and say, "No growing while you sleep, okay? It’s not allowed. No getting big while I'm not looking."
But they grew anyway, and it must have been while they slept, because all day, every day, I was with them and I never saw.
I never saw this time, either. All of a sudden my grandbabies are kids. I heard myself talking to my daughters the other day. "So what are the kids doing?" I said. "Did the kids have a good time at Sarah's?" The kids. My head knew. But my heart had no clue.
You see a child every day, or once a week, or once a month. You pick him up at school. You talk to him on the phone. He sleeps over. You play War. And he's the same kid, every time.
And then one day, he isn't. His pants are too short and his sneakers are too small and his arms are three inches longer than his shirtsleeves. And he's talking about things he's never talked about before.
And you look at his face and that's changed, too. You see, for the first time, the 12-year-old he will be, not the two-year-old he was. And you realize that the child he was just last week, just yesterday, is gone.
Shedding the Stages of Childhood
For every kid they become, children leave another behind. You get used to one and another takes his place. That's life. That’s growth.
Adam will turn seven on April 5. My big boy. Seven. But it’s not his age that rocks my world. It's Adam.
He slept in a crib in his mother's old room. He gurgled and cooed and smiled and wailed.
I loved the infant he was.
He pulled himself up and furniture-walked around the family room floor. He spilled Cheerios everywhere.
I love the toddler he was.
He hung out with Richie in nursery school. And lots of kids in kindergarten.
I love the preschooler he was.
Now he's an earnest first-grader with two missing front teeth who loves math and anagrams and playing Wii and anything Star Wars.
I love all these Adams.
I don't see him every day anymore. But it doesn't matter because when I do, I watch and I listen and I memorize him, because that's all I can do. Enjoy the sweet, toothless boy that Adam is now.
Read more of Beverly Beckham's reflections on watching her grandchildren grow up:
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