Skylar is 18!

We spent the weekend in Hudson to celebrate our Grandson’s 18th Birthday! We can’t believe that he is 18 years old! I can’t believe that 18 years have passed since I was in the hospital in the middle of the night, and waiting for his birth with his Dad and our daughter! I was able to hold him in the nursery within minutes of his birth, while Dawn was still in recovery from a C-Section. I will never forget that night, and I will never forget how special it was for me to be holding my first grandchild in the wee hours of the morning. He was so cute, and he had blonde hair, not peach fuzz, but hair! It was one of the most wonderful nights of my life, next only to my own children’s births.

These days I’m carrying around 4 different wallet size poses of this boy in my wallet, and I show them around a lot. Especially, when I see someone I haven’t seen for awhile and they ask about Dawn, out come the photos! I have to laugh that so many of them that look at pictures tell me things they remember about him when he was little. (They lived in Duluth until he was 4 and I used to take care of him a lot, while Dawn worked.) They remember how full of energy he was, how he was a real “handful” for Mom and Grandma, and how much fun he was to be around. They tell me things that I have even forgotten! We never knew what was going to come out of his mouth that would make everyone laugh. I was at the grocery store on Friday night picking up his birthday cake (Grandma and Grandpa bring the birthday cakes), and I ran into Skylar’s first Nursery School teacher. I haven’t seen her in years, and of course she asked about Skylar and Dawn, and out came the pictures. She told me, “of course, he’s a dancer, he was a mover and shaker when he was in my class!” This teacher was only a few years older than our daughter at the time, and Skylar was in her class during her first year of teaching. She said she will never forget him. Our next door neighbors called him “Dennis”, as in “Dennis the Menace”. Dawn and I of course, do remember what a handful he always was, and I know Dawn will say he still is!

The neighbors that called him Dennis, there was a boy who lived in that house before them, he was one of 4 children, the other three were girls. We would have maybe called him “Dennis”, as he was full of energy and lots of fun and he was also a real handful for his Mother. They lived there while her husband was in Greenland with the Air Force. His name was T. J. One time after T. J. was all grown and in his twenties, he came back to Duluth and visited us. I thought at that time, that Skylar reminded me so much of T. J. when he was young, and it was very comforting to me to find that T. J. turned out so well, I knew then that Skylar would also turn out well when he grew up.

Now, our Grandson is on the threshold of manhood, and he has his whole life ahead of him, and we are all anxious to see what he does, we know he will be a success in whatever he chooses for his life.

If you remember, from my previous posts, I told you that in Feb. of ’06 he took up dancing, and how good he is at it. When I tell people who knew him when he was little about this, they all say they aren’t surprised because of how much energy he always had!

Yes, dear Skylar, is still a handful, but oh my, do we all love that handful, and everyone who knows Skylar loves him. (Remember, at the National Dance Competition in Las Vegas, he won the “Congeniality” Award with 50 votes out of 52 potential votes! Ok, now Grandma will quit bragging!

Happy 18th Birthday Skylar, we all love you!!!