Might as well jump—JUMP!

35 Weeks

As summer and new summer fun/responsibilities/traditions/necessities present themselves, our lives have gone from time for thinking before leaping to realizing we're mid-leap when we see a cloud pass though our windy hair. "Honey! When did this happen?! What?! Parachute??!!! AHH!! PUUUULLLL!!!!"

This weekend was all about family and new friends coming into Ren's point of view. It was his fantastic first cousin, Emma's second birthday bash, his first trip to the Big Apple (if you count an Inwood picnic as a welcome to NYC), and the first day of his Papa-son's two-month visit. While mommy felt like the coked up, washed up, game show host of the Ren World Tour, Ren sat back and took it all in with plenty of giggles and few complaints.

"The kids are all asleep! Time for the adults to wake up!!!"

After Emma's celebration, the moms check on the kids and we all find ourselves sitting around a cozy campfire. I choose an empty seat next to my father-in-law. In the past two years he's gone from job to retirement and from 'Dad' to 'Poppy'. I know how much our own lives have quickly changed, I start to think about his new turn. I casually try on his proverbial shoes: "Hey Dad, what's it like?"

What came after made me consider tying our stack of parenting books together to make a footstool.

"Well. I don't feel like a grandfather."

"Oh."

"I feel like I'm playing a role. You know what that's like. All the world's a stage and all that."

My father-in-law coached both his boys' little league teams. He also championed them through camps, games, plays, Boy Scouts, first dates, first jobs, and universities.

"It all went by so fast. We only have so much time. And now I'm a grandfather. I don't feel it. It's just a name."

I didn't expect his sincerity; his vulnerability. Perhaps a greeting card sentence on blessings or a joke about diapers. Wow. I don't know why I was surprised. My father-in-law has always been refreshingly frank.

"Yeah, it took me a while to realize I'm not suddenly just A MOM. I'm a woman who is also a new mother."

"Well. You're a mom first."

"Of course."

"But then you're something else."

"Oh."

"First it's about keeping them alive. You're a mom... Then you're a teacher."

My father-in-law worked night jobs cleaning and stocking grocery shelves to make ends meet.

"You teach them right from wrong. Over and over. You make sure they understand the rules."

"Wow, Dad. Yeah."

"Then— Once I took one of them, Mark or Greg, I can't remember— I drove him and a date to a scary movie and then drove them home through the graveyard..."

"That was Greg! I love that story!"

We laugh at a skinny, mustached Greg sitting in the backseat.

"After you teach them. Then you're the parent. You gotta discipline. Make sure they stay on track with all you told 'em."

My father-in-law taught me how to trim a hedge. When my mother-in-law yelled at him for making me do yard work, he answered for me: "She isn't around grass in the city. She wants the dirt under her fingers for once!"

"Then..."

My father-in-law looks across the campfire at his sons. Greg is sitting in a chair. Mark is dancing around the fire. 80's music plays and I find myself singing along with the hair-band chorus.

"Mark and Greg. They're different. Always have been. I remember peeking in their rooms at night. Late at night. 3 a.m. when they were teenagers..."

My father-in-law tells me stories about watching his sons turn their attentions towards girls.

"That's when you start to let go. Before you know it, they're off to college and you just hope that they hold on to everything you taught them and helped them through. That's when you're in the background."

"And... that's the hardest part..."

"Well, of course. You're never as important again. And then you're Grandpa. It's not a bad thing. It's how it should be. It's how it is. You just pray you taught 'em all the right stuff. You pray they don't do stupid things."

We both look over the flames and take in the scene. Here is our Hallmark hallmark.

"I think you did all right."

"Yep. I did."

I run into the house and when I come back out my father-in-law is giggling and flirting with his wife until she smacks his hand away. I wonder how many cliffs they've jumped off together.