My Grandchildren

What to write about one’s family is an issue that all personal columnists face.

I was probably too laissez faire back in the 80s and 90s when I wrote about my daughters. I guess I was lucky they didn’t know that at least one personal columnist paid their kids $5 each time their name appeared in the column.

Thinking about this recently, I realize that most of you don’t know I now have two grandchildren, a toddler boy and an infant girl. I cut a deal with their mom: cute stories: OK. Pictures or names: NOT OK.

First a cute story about the girl: I have discovered that when she fusses, I can often calm her down by doing the “royal wave.” I am an anglophile and I read years ago that the royals model their public wave after “screwing in a light bulb.”

I think she is reacting to the gesture: my daughter thinks that I am radiating joy as I do the wave, and that her baby is reacting to that.

At almost four years old, my grandson is already correcting me. He calls me Abba, and seems sorry to have to say, “O Abba, that’s not right.”