I could hardly contain myself when #2 Son and Baby Girl chose to spend their first Christmas as a family-of-three with us in North Georgia.  Our first Grandson, aka Mr. Yummy, is 8 months old and has me waiting for every sound and every squeal as Baby Girl and I talk on the phone just about every day.

She is such a great daughter as she shares every “first” with me, even over the phone.  God knew what He was doing when He had us born in the iPhone age with photos and videos at our fingertips.  Mr. Yummy hears my voice practically every day as I speak love and encouragement to his new Mommy as she fully understands the awesome responsibility to raise a young man.

It had been 4 months since I had seen him last and feared he’d be resistant to me, but he came straight to me from the arms of his Daddy with the flirty grin that has melted my heart more times than I can count over these last 6 precious days.

We went to church where he flirted with all the ladies and chewed on the pews.  We crawled on the floor and climbed up refrigerators, windows, dishwashers, and mirrors as he explored his reflection.  We chewed on Baby Jesus from the Little People’s Nativity purchased at last year’s after-Christmas sales and wooden spoons were banged on anything that made great noise.  We played with flashlights, wrapping paper, and slid on blankets across the hardwood floors.

“Pat the Bunny”, “Goodnight Moon”, and “Guess How Much I Love You” board books joined a small soccer ball, a small football, a small basketball, and Christmas pajamas were first-Christmas gifts.  The other stuff will come soon enough.

He won’t remember a thing about his first Christmas, but we will.  His Pop will see the teeth marks on the coffee table soon enough.  His Uncle Ben is always looking for “My Uncle Rocks” tshirts.  And I have a salt-dough footprint ornament Baby Girl made which initiated much laughter and conversation.

“How do you breathe?”, asked a friend when she found out that our first grandson is growing up so far away. I breathe by inhaling and exhaling on the grandchildren of others who’s grandparents live so far away. When we invest in the lives of other’s little people, we trust that another family of faith will be be investing in the life of our little people who live so far away. I pray that his faith community will be living examples of the grace and extravagant love, the tender authority and compassion shown by our Savior to each of us.

“Come thy fount of every blessing, tune my heart to hear thy grace; streams of mercy, never ceasing, call for songs of loudest praise.”