The People, Places and Things of...May

It's already mid-June!  How did that happen?  I should know to expect this by now...May is a sprint to the beginning of summer when we finally get to take it easy.  Well, some of us get to take it easy, there are parents who get to do swim team and baseball much of the summer.  I count myself among the lucky ones where summer means flying north to the shore for a while.  I also count myself among the lucky ones who get to experience a sprint in May, I would be sad if May were just another month that slipped by the same as all the others.  Thankfully, I am not there yet!  May generally keeps me busy!

This year I spent May with some of my favorite people, in what is becoming one of my favorite places, doing one or more of my favorite things.  I left Houston on May 8 and returned on the 30th!  It wasn't all fun and games.  Who am I fooling?  Yes, it was, especially if you like waiting, playing, walking around soaking up the views, cleaning, climbing up and down many hills and stairs, rocking a baby, and falling in love.  

Yes, I spent most of May in this beautiful city.

My youngest daughter and her husband were expecting their second little boy in May.  I flew out a few days before the due date so I could watch the oldest while mommy and daddy were gone and help out after they became a family of 4.  Well, the due date came and went, and we waited.  We waited while walking, while eating, while shopping, while cleaning, while cooking and while hanging out at the playground.  Finally, a week after I arrived sweet baby Thomas Sebastian was born and I shared some very special alone time with big brother.

Big, beautiful, blue eyed, baby boy!

I have had the pleasure of seeing many of my grandsons meet their younger siblings and it is one of the sweetest moments in life!  To see their face light up when they meet this new little person who is their sibling is just so sweet.  It has been one of the few times I have gotten to be that fly on the wall and just watch a family take a new shape.  The next couple of weeks are a blur.  We slipped into a semi-routine.  Is there ever a routine with a newborn?  I tried my best to be a good mother/mother-in-law and do what needed to be done and stay out of the way as much as possible.  I also made sure I got to snuggle with that new baby as much as possible!  There is nothing like just staring at the face of innocence and beauty for hours on end.  I fell in love...again...instantly.

Mother's Day carrots planted and harvested
by Augie!

Dinner date at "train sushi"* waiting for baby brother
to enter the world. 
*Augie's favorite place to eat...sushi delivered by robots
and bullet trains.  What's not to love? 

Lots of playground time!

First time to hold his brother.

Gigi just soaking up all the snuggles!

I followed up three weeks in California, where the weather is perfect and the sun shines with two weeks in Houston where the days are hot and humid.  I think I do this to myself just to make sure that when I leave for the shore I do it with no regrets.  I will not miss this torture they call summer down here.  I tried to brush up my golf game but seeing the ball through sweat blurred eyes was very challenging.  I am not sure how much more a person can sweat than I did this week on the golf course.  Yes, I could have opted not to play...but I am a glutton for punishment.  I will leave knowing I have stayed as long as I could and now it is time to migrate north.  

I get to go to the most wonderful place on earth.  If you ask me.  I have hopefully crossed all the t's and dotted all the i's before I leave.  If not, I have some very good neighbors who look out for us!  This will be the first summer in a long time that I won't be going to the shore concerned about an aging parent.  For years I have either worried about them making it to the shore and how that would all play out or felt guilty about leaving them behind at home and what might happen while we are so far away.  While I was never their primary care giver, I worried never the less.  They will both be there in spirit this year.  I am hoping for a great summer, full of family, friends, sunshine and good times.  I might even make time to write about it...if it rains.

Have a great summer everyone!