Good news travels fast!

My oldest grandson, now six years old, went back to school last week. "My teacher's a first grade teacher," he said to me that evening. His days of being a lowly kindergartner are behind him now. His younger brother will be starting his second year of pre-school this week, and their baby brother, a little over five months old, is mastering the skills of sitting up, drooling, and stuffing things--anything--into his mouth. Their uncle and aunt (my son and his wife) are expecting their first, another boy, at the beginning of September. If and when a baby girl is ever born into this wild bunch of little critters, I hope she's a strong one!

It seems like just yesterday that I dashed from mid-Michigan to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, on the day of Dustin's birth. I found out at an Indiana rest stop that I could slow down my pace; I wasn't going to make it in time for his birth. In the middle of my frantic "Are you okay? How are the pains?" at the payphone just outside the restrooms, I heard my daughter's quiet, tired voice say to me, "He's here, Mom. He's born. He's beautiful." I walked on air back to my car. I was a grandmother! The goofy grin on my face and the wild whooping and hollering I did after I heard her words kept the other reststoppers at their distance, but I didn't care. I was finally a grandma. I had a grandchild. My daughter had a son. Life was good. God was great. No, God was stupendous!

I'll be on my way north soon--hopefully, in time for my fourth grandson's arrival. I'll be flying this time, so there won't be a repeat of my interstate indoctrination to grandparenthood. Still, I have a cellphone now, so if you happen to be in an airport on the way to Michigan in about a month, listen for a wild cry of happiness. It might just be me.

Until the next time...