Our granddaughters are growing up. How did they reach fourth and first grade so quickly? Whence the baby softness?  And Leah’s early morning visits to do my hair up in a rainbow of barrettes and bows?  Olivia’s sweet companionship, our word play? My hands must loosen yesterday’s delights to make room for new deliciousness in the making.

As the girls grow into themselves, I guard against labeling them. They have different personalities. Distinct interests. Divergent preferences and temperaments.  That’s as it should be, must be really, if they are to grow into their full potential and embrace their unique essence.

And yet, I can’t help but marvel at how these two sisters channel their energies into such different paths.  Leah is all movement.  She easily learns dance routines —  lyrics, gestures and steps. I don’t know that she so much learns as imbibes, as if she sees all the elements and simply transfers them into her being all of a piece. Leah loves purses and accessories. I’m not sure about sunglasses any more but she could have given Jackie-O a run for her shades a year or two back.  Shakespeare couldn’t have presaged Leah’s arrival yet bequeathed her her very own meme:   “And…though she be but little, she is fierce.” 

Olivia, too, is a quick study though her passions usually keep her nestled into the couch cushions as she reads and reads and reads. She is growing slender and leggy. It makes me so wistful. “Please, please don’t rush from childhood!” I silently call to her from my heart. Another year and she’ll probably be taller than I am. Another and she’ll be on the Bar and Bat Mitzvah circuit. Her mind is forever thirsty and I marvel at the avenues she chases down to slake it. Two weeks ago it was chess. Our first game she left me with a king and a pawn. Who knows what paths she’ll have pursued by our visit next month?

There will surely be envies as they mature. They will notice how one another moves in the world and how others react to them. I remember a day some years back. Olivia had copped a parenting book from her mother’s nightstand.  She was reading it in the rocking chair on the front porch. “What is sibling rivalry?” she asked me.  I don’t recall how I answered her, but I knew it was inevitable.

What I also know is show deep their love is for one another. I keep on my dresser a photo of the two of them snapped the moment they embraced after Olivia’s month away at summer camp. Leah has completely burrowed her face into her sister’s torso. Their arms are wrapped around one another. Olivia rests her head against Leah’s. Eyes closed, Olivia smiles a smile so sweet my heart breaks with joy. The photo sums up a relationship that will withstand all rivalry:

“You’re home,” sighs the younger one.

“I’m home,” answers the elder.

Leah is learning how to write which opens up a new avenue of communication.  What better way to begin and end the day than to read these baby love notes from our youngest granddaughter? She told me today that she is getting new shoes.  With laces! She is excited to learn how to tie her own shoes.  Stay tuned.

Our granddaughters turn nine and six next month.  Where has the time gone? I miss their baby softness, the toothless smiles and the toddler poetry of a new talker who called puddles rain shadows.

And I love, love, love the stage we’re in now. The girls are true individuals, each with her own lovely personality. We can have real conversations. Long past their need for naps, diapers, and mad rushes to the bathroom, we can venture longer and farther on outings.

Olivia is long and leggy, solid and athletic. She’ll likely be taller than me in a year or so.  I love watching her soccer games and thrill at the sight of her chasing after the ball, her loose hair flying behind her free as her spirit.  Never without a book in her hands she reminds me of myself as a child. I liked nothing better than to fill my arms with library books and hide myself away into other worlds.

Leah is a sprite, a tiny firecracker of a girl. I sometimes think her circulatory system is composed of ginger ale bubbles not red and white blood cells. She is trying to make sense of the world. “So Grandpa woudn’t put your nail medicine on his toes and you wouldn’t put his toe spacers on your fingers right?” Leah loves to cook and helped me make a good deal of Thanksgiving dinner. None of this could happen if they were still small enough to cradle in my arms.

As a grandmother, I have the time to notice and savor the stages. To marvel over what is and anticipate what might be coming down the pike.  Once again, I have been given the gift of watching two dear human beings grow into their futures. Not forever, surely. Never has the now been sweeter.

Olivia, our oldest granddaughter, face-timed with us a couple of weeks ago. They’d been spending time out in California with Elizabeth’s family. Their weeks are full and rich, replete with water skiing, boating, visiting with dozens of cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents. There is also a family reunion weekend  of her mother’s side of the family at a beautiful retreat house in Healdsburg, CA. Relatives come from Hawaii, Oregon and from all points in California. They have been meeting for decades, a perpetual bequest from a beloved uncle.

Olivia was bursting with excitement to show me the whole scene.  “Look, Aviva!” she called out running with the phone.  “This is the orchard. We picked plums and peaches and apples. We made a fruit salad for dinner. And here is where we eat! And this is the pool!” She stopped for a few moments to introduce me to some of her cousins. During the weekend they gather to share family stories and history. There are albums and scrapbooks recording the family’s role in the Korean independence movement. Theirs is a story of great triumph and tragedy.

It was a delight to share in Olivia’s joy, to see this bit of her world as it expands around her and she within it.  One summer at a time, this haven is being woven into her soul, replete with memories and the centering that comes from experiencing her place within the generations. That she wanted to show me her summer world thrilled me. Olivia might have been three thousand miles away, but it moved me deeply to realize she carries me within her heart no matter where she goes.

photo courtesy of Suttons, Devon, UK

After 16 years, it was time for a new car. With 86,000 or so miles, my Malibu was still in good condition.  But I’ve begun to drive to Chicago more frequently and the time had come to have a car with iPhone interface capabilities, a back-up camera, and other safety features that didn’t exist back in 2009.

I love my new Chevy Trax. It’s cute; it’s small; it’s peppy. Given my love of the Southwest and the fact that my license plate references Arizona’s red rocks, there was no other color for me but Cacti Green. I even went on Etsy to find the perfect decal of a blossoming prickly pear cactus to affix to the gas cap door. Elliot was in town with the girls when the car arrived. Olivia and Leah came with Martin and me to the dealership. When I brought the car home, they clambered in and out of it for a few minutes before declaring it was way cool.

On this most recent visit with the girls, Olivia told me she made something special for me at art camp. After breakfast she had me close my eyes and hold out my hands. She placed something cool, heavy and rounded in my outstretched palm. I opened my eyes to this beautiful rock.  Without ever having seen it herself, Oivia somhow rendered the brilliant red-orange-copper glow the rocks take on at sunset. A few random drips of purple (happy mistakes) remind me of the violet streaks of cloud that we sometimes see before the sun slips behind the mountains. The rock fits perfectly in my hand. I declared it way cool and got mushy with my thank yous.

What is so special about Olivia’s gift is that she created it for me in honor of my love of red rock hiking. Olivia gets me as much as I get her. She hasn’t come hiking with us yet but I hope to remedy that soon. I can’t wait to make a red rock girl out of her, too.