A visit from the grandkids

Around lunch time yesterday my daughter dropped by the office with my two year old grandson Ayden and his six month old sister, Addison. We visited for a while and I held my granddaughter and watched Ayden buzz around the nursery like a little bumblebee. Addison is the calmest baby that I have ever met and Ayden is the opposite. Yesterday he was especially energetic after drinking half of his mother’s sweet tea when she wasn’t watching. Ayden has been making these visits since he was younger than his sister and it has been fun to watch him grow in both his size and understanding. When I first saw him yesterday in the church nursery he said to me “Pe-pah (where he got that name for me I’ll never know) where’s Jo?” He was asking about our Sunday morning nursery attendant Jo Ellen, naturally assuming that she should be there in the nursery whenever he was there. I laughed at the clarity of his speech and said “She’s only here on Sundays Ayden.” It has been amazing to see his little mind work at making these types of associations. Like when we drive by a restaurant and he says “Eat” or “Lunch” or when we drive by the Chuckie Cheese and he yells “Mouse” (he’s afraid of that big costumed mouse character, but strangely drawn to him at the same time). At one point Ayden thought that maybe his grandmother was hanging around the church some where and he led me off on a search for “Me-mah.” Right now church for Ayden is a fun visit, both on Sunday morning and during the week. I can’t wait to see how his understanding will grow related to this. Eventually it will become about more than just playing in the nursery and seeing “Me-mah” and “Pe-pah.” Hopefully, he will feel the love of God and know the love of the people who make up the church. Right now I’m sure that the church building is huge to him, each time he enters the sanctuary he stares upward at the high ceiling. I’m hoping that his perception of the church will never shrink in size, that it will have a large influence on his life. As Jesus said “Let the little children come unto me, of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.”