By Kevin Chiri

The little boy is fattening up.

My newest grandson, Jerry Scott Smith III, that is.

My daughter Chrissy spent the weekend with us, and brought the little fellow over. To catch some of you people up, Jerry Scott was born 12 weeks prematurely back in December, but is making a remarkable recovery.

He is now over eight pounds, and doing just great. He does not have one physical problem lingering from his start in life, when he arrived at a mere 2 pounds, 4 ounces. What a miracle.

The funny thing about little Jerry is that he is actually now over four months old, but when you look at his size, he appears to barely be the size of a newborn.

Chrissy said she still feels funny when people see the little boy, and ask how old he is. I’m sure they are figuring he is a few weeks old, but she says, “almost five months,” and they are probably ready to call Social Services, figuring this has to be a mother who is not feeding her baby.

But quite the contrary, this little fellow is drinking down the formula like it’s about to be taken off the market.

This weekend Chrissy came over to the house with what she thought was enough formula, only to realize Sunday night that she didn’t have enough to make it through the night. She told me he seems to be going through one of those growing spurts and is drinking far more than his usual amount. We jumped in the car and had to make a 9 p.m. run to the store. So much for planning a little better for a first time mom.

As a still new grandparent, I find myself looking at these little grandchildren (I now have two), and still hardly feel like I’m “Grandpa,” or “Grammie” as my wife has decided to have herself called.

I still don’t have any kind of feeling like I’m a grandparent, at least from the age standpoint. Sure, at age 53, I’m plenty old enough to be a grandparent, but I just feel like a parent and not really ready to be “Grandpa.”

But ready or not, “Grandpa” I am.

I took little Jerry into my TV room on Sunday morning to take care of him after the early morning wakeup and feeding, so my big girl and my still little girl could get some sleep. That’s right. I get up early with the baby. I changed his diaper…even the bad ones, and I feed the kid and hang out with him, just like I did with my little sweetheart granddaughter Abby, and just like I did with all my own kids.

After he got fed, I lay him on a blanket in front of me to try and help him continue to get used to not being held all the time. (There’s a topic for an entire separate column.)

As he lay on his back, it sounded like he was beginning to fuss, but then I realized, he was actually working on finding his little voice. He would kind of start a fussy sort of sound, but then squeeze out more of a different noise that wasn’t crying at all. And then there wasn’t any crying or real fussing. Chrissy had said he was trying to make these little sounds like words—not that he’s anywhere close to really saying words—and sure enough, I could see that Jerry has discovered his voice.

I sat in my chair, with the old rock and roll music playing on my TV station, and just watched the little boy. Wow, it’s amazing to think of how involved these little children are in our lives. And more than that, how bored we would be if we didn’t go through the entire children thing.

Just imagine if we never had kids, or the grandchildren that would follow. I would have been sitting there every morning, just me and the TV, with little else week to week to change the routine. Sure, it’s OK for a while, but eventually we want something different. And one thing for sure, nothing is “different” like some kids at the house.

Sure, kids can be a pain. And they sure strain the wallet for more years than you ever imagine they will. But in the end, isn’t it a wonderful thing the way God has the circle of life make its complete loop?

First we are just some silly, young kids who get married. Then we end up having some silly, little children of our own. Heck, we still feel almost like kids!

But we’re not. Now we’re parents, and now we have children who we are completely responsible to take care of in every way of their life. And so our life circle goes on, as we take them from this little baby stage, into being toddlers, and then young children, and then teens, and finally young adults who leave home and start the circle all over again.

Having Jerry laying there on the blanket made me think about how interesting it is to have these children—and now the grandchildren—around. Thank God we have them. For all the heartache they bring at times, and certainly all the worry they give us here or there, life would be just so, so boring without these kids to keep things interesting.

Saying that, I want to make it clear that I know there are young people out there who can’t have children, and would give anything to have them. For those people, I pray that things will work out for you and you will get the children you want so badly.

But speaking for so many who have these kids and grandkids, I found myself marveling at the gift of life, and how fortunate we are to have it so richly in our lives. My wife and I appreciate it, I believe. We talk about it, and even when things aren’t so perfect, we still appreciate how wonderful our lives have been with these kids and grandkids.

Now as we are getting past the stage of our own children growing up and leaving—even though we still have a 12-year-old boy at the house who won’t be going too soon—I just find myself thanking God all the time for the kids and grandkids he has given me, not to mention the wonderful wife to share it with.

How lucky am I? As it goes in a Brad Paisley song, he sings something about sitting around with his buddies one night when they are having a grand old time, and saying that things just couldn’t get much better than this.

But then he tosses out a scenario where something even better happens. And Brad sings that just when he didn’t think things could get any better, “then they did.”

I’m finding that out.

Little Jerry was laying on the blanket, and I kneeled down to look right at him. He’s now looking back, recognizing a friendly, yet somewhat aging face, and every now and then busting out with a big, toothless smile.

And as he worked on getting that little sound out, he suddenly squeaked something that was close to a real word. He kind of yelled right after that, knowing he had done it.

And when I thought things couldn’t get any better than they are, “then they did.”

Kevin Chiri is Publisher of L’Observateur and can be reached at (985) 652-9545 or at kchiri@bellsouth.net