Last weekend we met our newest granddaughter for the very first time.
The first child of our oldest daughter, Jessica, and her husband, Payton, the little one is inclined toward brown eyes, a hint of natural wave in her dark hair, and a charming little dimple right in the middle of her chin.
Though she's tiny now, chances are she'll probably grow to be tall and willowy, with the long, slender hands of a musician just like her mom and dad (though she may well choose, instead, to use them for carrying a basketball down the court!).
In her brief life, she's already visited a concert hall in Amsterdam, ridden the New York City subway, traveled "deep in the heart of Texas" and, as of last weekend, tried swimming in a Minnesota lake (she especially enjoyed the wave action after she got past the initial plunge into the cold water!).
Though her parents have chosen a name for her, none of the rest of us knows it just yet. It seems they don't particularly want it emblazoned on everything from doll babies to diaper pails by overzealous family members, nor do they want to be regaled with tales of how someone's ne'r-do-well third cousin on their mother's side had the exactly same name - and ended up in jail!
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Name or no name, our new granddaughter is busy and active much of the time but is easily soothed by the soft sounds of her mother playing the flute or the mellow tones of her father practicing the marimba or drumming out an ancient rhythm on the tabla.
If her parents are any indication, the tiny girl will grow up loving cats, concerts and Cool Whip, and she'll feel as much at home in the mysterious Far East as she is in the cozy kitchen of their two-story home in Jersey.
And though Grandma Wendy and Grandpa Ken were something entirely new to her up until last weekend, we're hoping it won't take too many more visits for her recognize the sound of our laughter and the feel of our touch....
We're hoping to introduce her to the beauty of nature, take her fishing and four-wheeling and snowmobiling and give her a ride in the canoe to silently sneak up on a loon or spot the water lilies in the bay or sit around a campfire on the North Shore roasting marshmallows with her.
We can hardly wait 'til she's big enough to climb the ladder to the play loft in the uppermost peak of our house, or peddle her bike alongside us down the Lake Walk or help decorate sugar cookies in our kitchen at Christmastime.
We hope we'll be lucky enough to be on hand to see her take her first steps, or sit in on her first recital, or maybe carry her on our shoulders through the children's barn at the county fair. Of course, she and her family live thousands of miles away on the East Coast, so all that might not be possible, but for now, it's enough just to have met her for the very first time.
And in that mysterious way that comes from knowing her parents for nearly a lifetime, already we feel as though we know that new baby girl very well indeed - even before she makes her entry into the world next November....
Pine Journal Publisher/ reporter Wendy Johnson can be contacted at: wjohnson@pinejournal.com .
