Summer has slipped away.  I may as well get used to it. 
Most of my petunias succumbed to the end-of-August blues, the geraniums continue blooming their heads off in a last salute to the season, the nights are cool, the moon has been magnificent and I’m about to start buying pots of chrysanthemums. 

It’s September.  Can you believe it?

My granddaughter Annika and I had a most splendid Edmonds visit to end the summer.  I love having her here!  She and Uncle Warren and I did all sorts of things, including nightly visits to the waterfront for sunsets.

We also went to Everett to the Imagination Museum, which we visited last year when she came for a visit.  It’s a varied and exciting play-place for kids and a great spot to spend a rainy afternoon. 

Annika and I favor the totally dark room lit only by bright glowing neon rods and shapes to arrange on tables and in wall pegboards. Almost spooky!

Annika’s other favorite part of the museum is the popular room of water tables, with all sorts of waterwheels, splashing fountains, and little boats and toy figures to move through the water, while children build dams to change the courses of the boats. 

Each child wears a big waterproof apron, no guarantee against getting soaked!  I love it when kids actually play with non-plastic, non-electronic toys.

Then Annika went home to Idaho to start second grade, eager to find out which of her friends would be in her class.  Her mom and both grandmothers first did some shopping for school clothes; marveling at how recently we were buying size 4, not size 8.

In the meantime, my grandson Adam—at 16 months-- is fast outgrowing his clothes as his parents wonder when he turned from the dependent infant into the dynamo little boy climbing the stairs and standing on the chairs and running laughing through the house.
 
I stayed with him one evening last week and had a grand time.  This week I’m spending two days caring for him—I suspect I’ll sleep well those two nights!

Fortunately, Adam is starting to want to sit in my lap long enough to look at a book. 

Until recently, his attention span has been the blink of an eye.  There’s just too much for him to tend to, it seems! 

He cannot usually take time to slow down, so I enjoy those rare times to cuddle with him. 

Hair stylist Aunt Debbie gave him his first haircut last week, which makes him look older.  Personally, I liked the little over-long fringe across the back of his neck.

I plan to write about something besides grandchildren next week. But I will say there seem to be a lot of grandparents who never tire of hearing about each other’s grandkids. 

From infancy to college and beyond, our grandchildren are the easiest people in our lives to love, our best long-term investments and the sweetest of blessings.