Passing along the gifts

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Just a little wordy fun from yesterday....
 

Our seven-year-old grandson has been visiting and amid that blessing I squeezed in a quick trip to see the granddaughters and their mum and dad. Needless to say not much authorial work has occurred lately but I have played countless games of Sorry, Crazy 8's, Go Fish and just yesterday a turn at Scrabble. Not played for points, I taught my grandson the basic aspects, although his grandpa is a much better Scrabble enthusiast. For now my descendant's appetite is whetted to make more words, and he wants to count those points, hehehe, so our next endeavor will be fascinating.

Last week I taught my eldest grandgirl how to sew. She asked about making her own flower hexie, and sure enough when given some basted paper pieces, a needle, thread and instruction, she sewed all six hexagons to the center hexie, even attaching two petals together. While I gain much joy in finishing a novel, an even better thrill emerges when teaching a beloved some skill associated with my life. My grandson helped me deadhead petunias yesterday, he's been assisting his grandpa with various outside tasks. It seems like only recently all these rather big kids were toddling about, yet suddenly they are quite independent, and often brilliantly hilarious. When presented with the notion of one hand clapping, my youngest grandgirl slapped her palm on the dinner table, a sly smile on her face. The rest of us burst into amazed laughter as a four and a half year old grasped a concept in her own clever manner. They are aging fast, turning from wee babes into folks eager to follow in a few of our grandparental footsteps, a pretty magical moment of time.

Time and all its flexible possibilities figures heavily into what I'm hoping to write next, but time itself is a tricky beast; that my grandkids aren't babies anymore is occasionally a tripping hazard. That I'm a grandmother also gives me pause, ahem. Weaving through all of those alterations, words grip my hands be it at my computer or the game-playing table; I have never been a Scrabble fanatic, but that may change as seven-year-olds turn into eight, nine, and ten-year-olds with burgeoning vocabularies and heady desires for victory. It's marvelous to pass along visions of hope in my books, but the better lessons are what youngsters soak up in the day-to-day. Not that I'll stop writing, but peaceful coexistence is necessary when family visits. And if someday one of them asks about crafting fiction, I won't hesitate to give them the best advice; conjure up some good people, an interesting setting and unexpected story line, then see where that adventure leads. Not quite as simple as pulling tiles from the Scrabble bag or sewing hexies, but certainly a pleasant way to pass the time.

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