My great-grandson, Scotty, is now six months old and his father, John McFarlane, was trying to pick a time when the whole family would be able to visit us in River Edge. John and his family live in Toms River, NJ, so there is a bit of traveling time to get here. First I got a text from John, saying they would get here around one, then he changed it to two and then to a little earlier than two. As it turned out, they walked in at 11 and were wet from coming from the car in the rain, I was still in my pajamas. They were lounging pajamas so it was okay.  

He started smiling at us. Of course he’s the cutest baby I ever saw. To see my daughter, Patricia, as a grandmother, holding him was rather startling for me. We were warned by his parents, John and Christine, that he is 20 pounds so might be too much for us to handle. We used pillows propped under our elbows as we alternated feeding him a bottle and yes, he’s a bruiser and was a little hard to handle.  

John’s  stepson, Kyle had a birthday coming up, so we had an ice cream cake with his  name on it, which he was thrilled with. He was also presented with cards with money enclosed. In their family they get to spend half of any cash they get and then save the rest in a bank account. No complaints are heard about that.  

Kyle turned 10 on Wednesday, his first with double digits. Shauna, my granddaughter, got dropped off here by her mom. Every time she sees a picture of Scotty, she says that is one happy baby so she was thrilled to see him in person.  

Before we had the cake, we had three large pizzas delivered and only had a little left over for the next day. There were eight of us to eat pizza so that was not too surprising. Shauna loves to sing so besides the Happy Birthday song there was a lot of singing going on. I even sang “I’m my own Grandpa” which my grandson, Ryan gets a kick out of  hearing me sing. Shauna sang some songs from The Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserables. The last time they were here, the boys made a big fuss over Shaun’s throwing down the mic. That action went over my head as I didn’t know that was a thing. Next time we will be celebrating Dennis’ birthday which is in July. Dennis is John’s other stepson.  

Since I am an only child, I love having a big family and now I’ve got one. Hip, hip, hooray!