grand connections - then and now

When the babies were seven-months old, my mother flew out to California for a few days to visit with us. While the photo quality of this picture isn't the greatest, I clearly remember the scene when I took it. Very discreetly, I snapped it from the kitchen, using the poor quality zoom lens on my camera.  My mom was holding Carolyn, who had just woken up from her nap, perched on the edge of her crib while they quietly looked at the mobile suspended above Carolyn's crib and quietly laughed together to avoid waking the other two babies. It was an incredibly precious moment:



Because my mother and Jim occupy a two-bedroom apartment during their 4-5 months in Florida each year, Charlie and I have recently been opting to stay in a local hotel whenever we visit. During our trips, we will leave two children at a time, with my mom and Jim so that they have an opportunity to share some special time together, while Charlie and I have an opportunity to share some special time with the two in our company.  For the most part, the children are very good about taking turns. But on this trip, Carolyn never wanted to leave my mother's side so wound up staying over seven of the eight nights we were in town at my Mom and Jimbo's place.

Considering Carolyn is our most introverted child, I think it's wonderful how connected she is to my extroverted mother who is on a first name basis with every resident in her 12-story building.  Now I should probably interject here that BECAUSE my mother knows everyone that lives in her building (and the buildings on either side of her building, for that  matter), she happened to meet a woman who lives in Massachusetts. And within 30 seconds of meeting this woman, my mother had derived that this woman's husband - is the coach for my first cousin Kathy's daughter, Brenna's soccer team. And once they made the connection that Carolyn was Brenna's distant cousin AND the namesake for Brenna's grandmother (my sweet Aunt Carolyn) everyone suddenly went wild over the family resemblance. Because apparently my beautiful dark haired, dazzling blue-eyed, freckled faced Carolyn looks just like her cousin, Brenna.

(Colemans and Holohans, you'll need to weigh in on this because I've never met Brenna but I can only imagine that she must be adorable.)



Last week, I took this picture, again from the kitchen, using the slightly better quality zoom lens on my camera.  As I saw Carolyn and my mother quietly talking on the patio, I was overcome with a feeling of intense gratitude that my children really know my mother - and that my mother really knows them:



I was also overcome with intense wonder that my Mom might possibly be wearing the very same sunglasses (in the same position) in both photos spaced almost eight years apart.