“Mama, show me your muscles,” Grandson Alex said. So I lifted my left arm, flexed my muscles, and waited for Grandson Alex to tell me how impressed he was with my sinewy arm. Instead, he said, “Mama, your muscles are on the bottom. My muscles are on top. Why are your muscles on the bottom?”

I felt like Popeye when someone took his spinach away. Remember how he sags and the big muscles on his arms suddenly fall so they’re drooping down instead of shooting up? I couldn’t stop laughing – and I don’t think Alex laughed. I don’t think he thought it was funny. He was just asking a serious question while Mama was almost rolling on the floor in hilarity.

“Mama, show me your hand. Mama, you have a grandma hand,” Belle stated thoughtfully. I said that of course I do, because I’m a grandma. She nodded and very seriously said, “Yes, you are.”

And Asher just pats my tummy and grins. He knows a fellow eater when he sees one.

Getting older is a learning experience every day. It’s harder to walk, harder to get up, harder to sit down, harder to bend over – physically, everything is just harder to do. And I guess from here on out, it’ll just keep getting harder. Everything hurts. It’s just a matter of degree. Does my body hurt more today than yesterday? Am I able to walk without limping too much today, since yesterday I could barely make it across the room without staggering? Or is today a good day, and I can walk almost normally and I almost forget the pain of taking a step, legs almost giving out, pain shooting down both legs from my hip. Physically, life doesn’t look so good for the foreseeable future.

But the very best thing about getting older is that we have grandchildren! And having grandchildren means I don’t notice the pain as much as the miracle of these three little babies who constantly surprise us and keep us filled with awe and wonder. I’m actually able to get on the floor with them and play superheroes or cars, and my joints are so happy to be with the kids, that while we’re playing, my joints are quiet and stop hurting (until I get up, that is-ha!).

Children keep you young. It’s true! You laugh more, you move more, you think more, you enjoy everything with more intensity, and through all of this, you continue to be so filled with wonder at the beauty and intelligence and the love that flow out of these three little grandchildren. It’s just overwhelming.

I have also become an expert Wii player and expert X-Box player.

Well, now, that’s actually not true.

I’m really a terrible Wii player and an even worse X-Box player, but in the eyes of Grandsons, Mama rules! Or at least she gives it a good try. Asher says, “That’s good, Mama! That’s good!” and “That’s okay, Mama. Don’t feel bad.” And while he’s saying this, I don’t even know what I did or didn’t do or whether I did something great or something bad. Most of the time, I don’t even know which character I am on the screen. I just keep pushing buttons. But Grandsons think I’m doing great (or not so great).

While Asher and I were playing X-Box over the weekend, I kept losing. And Alex kept saying, “Asher, don’t be mean to Mama!! Stop being mean to Mama!!” He thought Asher should let me win sometimes. So Asher would jump off the roof and die so that I could win once in a while. I told Alex that it’s okay if Asher tries to win because that way I’d learn how to play, but Alex thought that was completely unfair, and kept telling Asher not to be mean to Mama. Alex has a heightened sense of fairness and unfairness. He wants everything to be fair – and he didn’t like it that Asher was winning all the rounds and I was losing all the rounds. He thought we should take turns winning. He was so sweet.

And now we’re just counting the days until we can be together again. Asher wanted to come home with us. We should have taken him. No home is complete without a child in it.