I wish I had remembered to write this yesterday.
Yesterday was my first grandchild’s birthday. Madison Nicole Kastner was born on Sept. 19, 2008, in Beijing, China. Thanks to her dad, my former son-in-law, I was able to hear her crying over the phone just five minutes after she was born.
Ten days later, on what was probably one of the 10 best days of my life, she fell asleep on my chest for an hour while I sang softly to her. I never fathered any children, and I’m pretty sure the last baby I saw who was that young was my sister Jocelyn back in 1961.
I was 11 then.
I called Maddie the Amazing Baby, and I blogged about her adventures in Beijing and the United States for the first two years of her life.
She has nearly always lived more than a thousand miles away, but thanks to the wonders of modern communication, I haven’t missed out on much. She has lived in Beijing, in Surabaya, Indonesia, in Kingston, Jamaica, and in Guatemala City, Guatemala, Throw in three stints in Northern Virginia while her mother attended language school for her next posting as a Foreign Service Officer.
Now she’s in Virginia while my daughter Pauline learns Arabic for her next posting in Tunisia. For the first time, Maddie, her four brothers and her little sister aren’t attending school. Thanks to the Coronavirus, and thanks to the fact that their parents are doing language training remotely, the children are homeschooling this year.
To me it seems like sort of a mixed blessing for the kids. On the one hand, they would be the new kids in school and would be there only for one year. On the other, well, there is what we call cabin fever.
I imagine it will be very strange for them. When you’re between overseas postings, these years in the States provide all sorts of opportunities not available in other countries. But with social distancing in D.C. — our son and his wife have been working from home for six months — there’s not much reason to go out.
We’re making plans to go north for Christmas. If you look at the fact that this might be our last opportunity to have both of our children stateside at the same time, missing this chance would be a big mistake. It’s difficult also to find a time when all six of the grandchildren will be there. Pauline’s three have spend some Christmases in Seattle with their dad, and Johnathan’s three go to Minnesota to see their mother.
We did see all six last year, but that was because we went for Thanksgiving instead of Christmas.
I wish we could see them more often. We’re about 650 miles away this year, but between the virus and our own mediocre health, my guess is we’ll be lucky to get up there twice before they go to Tunisia next summer.
One thing I really want to do this December is sit down with Maddie and find out what interests her. She’s heading into her teen years and one thing that pleases me a great deal is that she has become quite a reader. I don’t think there’s anything better a kid can be in present-day society.
I was surprised by a recent letter from her mother. Pauline said Maddie is changing her name — officially or not I don’t know — and wants to be called Artemis. Arti for short.
Fascinating. Artemis is the Greek goddess of wild animals, the hunt, the moon, vegetation, chastity and childbirth.
I hope we can talk about that.
And a lot of other things as well.
Even if she’s too big to fall asleep on my chest.