Sometimes, if I get up very, very early the house is quiet.  It’s my favorite time of the day because I can spend some quality time with myself,  but it’s usually short lived.  Today was about as beautiful a day as you could hope for in late July.  It was warm, but refreshing and  the sky was a deep, intense blue that is rare here, since it’s usually so humid that even if the sky is blue, it’s hazy and dull.   So I finished the dishes and went out to the patio to enjoy the day, taking the iPad with me to read a bit.  I guess the sight of someone sitting quietly unnerved grandson number one because he instantly stopped the video game he was playing and followed me outside.

Normally the comings and goings of adults are off the radar screens of children, unless they think you’re going to do something that’s potentially fun.  If there is the least hint of work involved an adult will completely disappear into the abyss and children will cease to see or hear them.  I’ve disappeared in  mid-sentence from time to time.

Grandson number one pulls up his chair, looks around and suddenly notices that our yard is surely big enough for a swimming pool, and don’t I think it would be great to have a swimming pool in the yard.  It would be so great  to have some place to cool off and we could invite our friends over, and if we called the guy now it would be done in about a day….He then switches gears completely and talks about how many bars of Internet he can get on his laptop when he’s outside and did I know that we could get the neighbor’s signal on the patio.  Suddenly he’s off again and begins an animated discussion about the proper way to destroy a building on his video game, which would be a good thing in case the zombies came because we are always in danger of having zombies attacking…(no wonder the kid never sleeps!)

In the meantime, Grandson number two comes home with two of his friends and begins to lobby me to allow them to play the Wii in the living room since  the older brother abandoned it to come out to the patio.  Oh, and could I get them all a round of Lucky Charms because he was hungry.  He was hungry because he and his friends were deeply engrossed in 10 year old boy games and he forgot to come home for dinner.  Uh, no. I would give him some leftover dinner, but no Lucky Charms.  One of his friends, who seems to think everyone’s name is Dude, was undaunted. “Dude, let’s go to my place and get some snacks.”  Off they go.  While this scenario was being played out Grandson number one was fully engaged in his conversation, seemingly unaware that I had stopped listening so I could deal with his brother.  By now his one sided discussion had moved to a long involved explanation about why Zombies wouldn’t come to our house anyway because they hate cats.

I learned years ago, when my girls were small, that life is a series of moments that will never be replicated or repeated.  I know that these days will be gone in a heartbeat and I’ll soon be dancing at their weddings, God willing.   I’ll have lots of time to be quiet and when I find myself in the quiet I’ll probably be thinking about these moments and wishing I could go back  just once more to be in them.