Precious Cargo

Jeff has to run a basketball tournament this weekend, and Jen has cheerleader camp at UCLA, which means Jan and I have had another chance to revisit to whole parenting thing. We had the girls all day Thursday, Friday, and until about 4 pm today. They spent Thursday night with dad and he brought them back over Friday morning.

Thursday was a full day. Swim lessons at 1:30 at OCC. It was their last day of this session, and on the last day they were given the chance to jump off the diving boards. Jolie somehow thought she would be forced to jump off the high board, so she was stressing about that all the way over. Not the case. She went off the low board. The first time it was being held by a coach and "jumping" into the arms of the other coach, but by the third time she was doing it unassisted. She also discovered grampa wasn't lying when he said swimming in 12 feet of water was the same as swimming in 4 feet of water. To our surprise, Jeslyn also had a chance to jump off the low board, which she did, twice, and I'm sure she'll now be lobbying for a board at our community pool. Then I took her to gymnastics. She's obviously the most talented and athletic in her class (no grampa bias at all), and needs to move to the next level to avoid further boredom, both on her part and on the part of family members watching.

Friday was less crowded, schedulewise. Jolie went to a sleepover at 5. Jeslyn spent the night with us, on the floor at the foot of our bed, to be close to gramma and grampa.

Jan left for a women's retreat this morning, so I took Jeslyn over to pick up Jolie about 9. The party was about 7 miles away (Heil east of Bolsa Chica for you OC people), and on the way home they were having a great time. Jeslyn had drawn some dress designs, and Jolie was offering praise and suggestions, and they were negotiatin just how much Jolie would pay Jeslyn for the design.

As I listened to my grandchildren play in my backseat, I was struck with this not-so-profound, yet moving, thought. I have been entrusted with more responsibility, and have a more valuable cargo, than any Brinks driver on the planet.