Today is Renee’s birthday and we spent the afternoon, like most afternoons, at Sam and Karen’s eating food, playing with cousins, and relaxing. We do a good job of making Sunday a Sabbath, trying to not spend time working, logging on, and getting side tracked with business.
It’s good for the soul.
Grandma Karen made a fort downstairs. Using the ping-pong table as framework, she draped blankets and cushions as walls with chairs as four corner turrets. It was awesome.
Kelly ran to me and asked if I would play with her. She asks this often. It sometimes makes me sad because it feels like a very temporary moment. Like this moment won’t last because teen years are around the corner with make up, girl friends and, yes, boys. And Papi and Mommy will shift to the side.
“Let’s play pretend,” Kelly said. “You be the grandpa, I’ll be the mommy, and you’re coming to visit my pong-ping house.”
“I’m the grandpa?” I asked.
“Yes, and I’m the mommy.”
And for that moment, walking into the fort that was a house, I had a deja vu sense of future. Kelly chattered away about making eggs, me having to take care of my grand daughter and how I wasn’t supposed to give them too much candy, a husband who looked like Justin Beiber, and how she loves her job as a “C.E.O” of a 45 company a.k.a “princess”¹.
A worthy goal.
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¹For a long time, the answer to “what do I want to be when I grow up?” was “princess”. Over time I’ve been able to convince my daughters that monarchies go against the wonderful values of republicanism…not to mention it’s not possible in America. They now use the American equivalent: a CEO of a fortune 500 company. Sort of a bad family joke.