around the table they sit

It has been a hot, lazy summer and the heat had been nearly unbearable until yesterday. We woke to a world refreshed by the gentle rain that fell for nearly 12 hours, brightening the green we thought was gone forever and perking around the flowers in my pots, their glorious petals saying "well, now, that's more like it!"

The grandbabies are here, all 5 of them, various heights and sizes, around the dining room table. They eat popsicles, lasagna, and ice cream sandwiches. They sing and laugh and make silly sounds to insight each other and their mothers. Theirs' is a world of pretend, of ultimate joy and unfathomable grief all rolled into one. Their days are too short and too long, all at once. The mothers compare baby feet and dimples, I see the faces of my own little ones, those big round eyes, the Campbell trademark eyebrows from Grandma Sallie, the kitty noses my genes threw into the mix.

Samuel has a book about creepy creatures and yesterday showed me the section on spiders, his face full of wonder, his questions unending. Do I look like the local arachnid expert? Jude is intrigued that Penelope is here and is his own size and is girly, something that doesn't come up often in this crowd. I sat between the two of them and gave them both shredded cheese. Penelope daintily placed one shred in her mouth at a time and smiled. Jude shoved handfuls in between laughing and making the booster chair sway. Ethan is all about potty training and that keeps him busy for much of the day. He is the spittin' image of his dad at that age, though it looks like we ordered the Cuban Sam doll this time around. And Henry, the only one in the bunch with curls, and those he most certainly has, has shot, captured, and wrapped all the rest of them in his imaginary spidey web at least a dozen times. Who needs cable when you have a live floor show?

I am so overwhelmed by God's gracious blessings to us.