Uncle Josh that is, and Bryce said it more than once when his uncle was in town last week and went with me to baby-sit.
After 2 ½ hours of ball tossing, motorcycle riding, raisin eating, circle drawing ...
guinea pig holding, wrestling, tickling, book reading and more, Bryce wore himself out enough for a nap.
He wasn't the only one.
Video clips: Hallway Speedway HERE.What Happened to Your Circle? HERE and Go Dog Go is HERE.
When Joe and I were down the mountain in Roanoke babysitting Bryce this week, we had lunch at Local Roots Café, a farm-to-table gourmet good restaurant on Grandin Road. Bryce was napping when we carried him in. He sweetly woke to find himself in a new environment where he promptly set about to wield a table knife into a sword and turn his nose up after tasting a lemon, which you can see HERE.
It was the best crab cake I ever tasted and the café owner, Diane Elliot (who it turned out I knew from the past), was warm and kid-friendly. 
After Bryce sampled a little of everything for lunch and then dumped out all the raw sugar packets to file them back in their proper place, his 20 minute sitting limit expired. I spotted him while he wandered around, which is when I learned that the café customers were kid-friendly too.
Joe soon joined us for an exploration of the grounds. We discovered the Grandin Gardens, an urban eco-village adjacent to Local Roots, when my eye caught a labyrinth and my interest was piqued by an empty lemonade stand. I learned later that The Gardens was the gathering place of Roanoke's recent 350 International Day of Climate Action, where 350 apples were made into apple butter and the ground's fountain was powered by a bicycle ride. 
Bryce was interested in the bicycle lending hut and, in particular, a certain red bike helmet. The only thing more interesting to him than that lady bug helmet, exploring the café compost heap, and throwing rocks in the water fountain, were the raspberries he discovered growing in the gardens. Like a wild animal that had come across a pickin' patch, he grazed for his dessert, smacking and smiling. 
Our tour ended when we realized it was time for Bryce's big sister to arrive home off the school bus. We headed back to Bryce's house, but not before running into our friend Tenely Weaver from "Good Food for Good People," who was setting up a fresh produce stand in front of Local Roots. She greeted Bryce with a smile, bent down and said to him, "Have all the apples you want. If you don't eat them, I'll have to feed them to my horses."
We're at Bryce's house today. See HERE.
And I elect Bryce as the cutest dragon boy. The photo was taken by Bryce's Aunt Darla and posted to her Facebook, where I clipped it. Watch Bryce walk upside down HERE.
Here he comes here he comes here he comes! There he goes there he goes there he goes! Watch HERE.
There comes a point in life when the thrill of new love comes to us through our grandchildren. The first time they purse their lips for a kiss, say your name (nana), hold out their arms for you to pick them up. Their smile melts your heart, makes it skip a beat. Their laugh leaves you breathless. You bring them gifts. You want to be close. Can't wait to see them again.
Watch me follow Bryce around HERE.
He gives kisses now and has stopped throwing sand in his hair. He trusts the people in his life and is confident enough to take some risks. Swings make him feel trapped in but he can't get enough of the slide! Watch the video clip HERE.
It turns out that a day in the park with my grandson Bryce was just what the doctor ordered for my recent bout of being over-extended.
Following a stroller stroll in the park, we had a picnic on the grass. I call the above picture “Bryce’s lunch hour.”
After lunch and with his shirt still wet from the orange he ate, he set out with his pinwheel in hand to see what other people in the park were doing. In his baby crocs, he walked, and I followed. The biggest drama of the outing was that he stepped in some gum. We also threw rocks in the creek. See the action video “A Boy and His Pinwheel” HERE.
My grandson Bryce has passed his first year of life with flying colors. As he’s reached all the normal first year milestones – first smile, first tooth, first step, learning to sit, crawl and walk – we’ve watched with enthusiasm and awe at how much a baby can learn in one year. As much as I’ve been impressed with his physical accomplishments, I’m equally impressed with the sometimes more subtle developmental milestones that assure me of his emotional health and his humanity.
Self-confidence: Bryce often exudes this as he struts his stuff, taking pride in his play and taking his life investigations very seriously.
Sense of Humor: I’m surprised at how early this human trait develops. It’s easy to make Bryce laugh and he likes to make you laugh as well.
Self- preservation: When I see Bryce move away from something strange or when he occasionally becomes afraid of something or someone, I’m impressed by his instincts and I know that his sense of personal boundaries and cautiousness will serve him well all through his life.
Ability to express love: I’m so impressed with Bryce’s hugs. They melt my heart and it touches me to know that he has the ability to form loving attachments.
Ability to express hurt feelings: Recently, while on a walk I handed Bryce a bright red wild strawberry, but then I remembered reading something about a mock wild strawberry and worried that it might be poisonous, so I quickly pulled it away (knowing he would surely put it in his mouth). He cried as though I broke his heart. Even though it was hard to hear him cry, I knew his ability to express his tenderness was a healthy sign.
Watch Bryce exhibit some of these skills HERE. (I could watch this one all day.) If you listen closely you’ll hear him say NANA!
Post notes: Later I did some research and verified that there are no poisonous strawberries but there is a wood strawberry that is particularly large and pretty; it's edible but has no taste. And just to be clear, Bryce does not wear glasses. Those are mine that he pulled off my face.
Go Green
Walk Your Talk
Gets Good Gas Mileage
1. Reason to wear gloves in April: Stinging Nettles from my neighbor's farm.
2. On the move fast food. Look what else Bryce can do HERE.
3. Rip Van Winkle slept here.
I’m standing on a patch of spring grass in the park with the sun on my back, pushing my 10 month old grandson Bryce in a swing. Little children are running around. Bryce giggles and kicks. Swinging high, he makes a funny face, has to catch his breath in the wind.
I’m swinging my grandson in the park. I say it out loud, waking myself to an alignment where my future is revealed as the present and I’m calling back to the past.
I’m swinging my grandson in the park. I don’t know how it happened, a beach town girl from Massachusetts, living in the country in Virginia, swinging her first grandchild in a park.
“Look. I’m swinging my grandson in the park," I say and everyone listens; the tiny girl who missed her daddy when he was stationed in the Quadraline Islands in 1952; the four year old girl in the wool snowsuit whose baby carriage was left empty when she lost her favorite doll; 
the girl in the pink flip flops eating cotton candy at Paragon Park (We spent all our money and had to walk the 5 miles home and my flip flop kept coming apart.); the girl in the plaid clam diggers posing with her big family at a cook-out down on the Cape; the young woman who danced every weekend at The Surf Ballroom, liked boys, and went to four proms; the South Shore day care teacher who pushed little four year olds in swings, read them stories, and made play-dough pies; the woman who bore her own two precious boys and loved every moment of raising them; the jewelry maker who bought her own home with money earned vending Grateful Dead concerts; the one who married the love of her life on the Blue Ridge Parkway in 1997; the writer who writes her life down.
So this is it. Here I am now. I’m swinging my grandson in the park.
Post note: I think the squeaky swing hypnotized me for this time trip. Video clip "The Next Best Thing to Flying" of Bryce's reactions to swinging is HERE.
AKA: Bryce Hates Hats
Bryce’s good looks have settled in and at nine months he’s taken on what I call the dreamboat look (seen HERE). He definitely has a leading man role in his household and he even does all his own stunts.
He looks especially good in one of his many hats, but he pulls them off as fast as you can put them on. He doesn’t think anyone else should wear hats either and takes them off people’s heads. He also hates shoes (see HERE).
Post note: That’s papa Joe and big sister Kaylee in supporting roles with the baby boy heartthrob.
I had a ball on Monday babysitting my eight month old G-Whiz kid Bryce.
We played for so long we got tired.
His big sister Kaylee got into the act.
The family dog Snoop was impressed.
Post Notes: Watch Bryce show off his first soccer moves HERE. Other new eight month old accomplishments are standing alone HERE and Bryce making 360 degree scoot as the family cat rushes to get away from his grab. HERE.
1. Future Scrabble player plots his strategy
2. Bites off more than he can chew
3. Uses board for surfing
4. Digs for good letters
5. Pleads innocent when his grandmother protests his putting them in his mouth
Post Note: See the action video clip HERE.
Hmmmm ...
Is it for me?
OKAY!
Cool.
My turn?
Group Play
Time-out
Hey where's my green truck?
Upside-down for the count.
Note: See the action trailer HERE.
Things move fast in the world according to Bryce. One week he’s repeatedly sticking out his tongue, the next week he’s eating bananas. One week he’s teething on toys and shaking rattles, the next he’s all about his new Playschool bus. So I guess I’ll be trading in the rattle I bought him for Christmas for something with four wheels.
Post note: See a video clip of Bryce at 6 ½ months old driving his new bus HERE.
Being with my first grandchild, 5 month old Byrce, engages all my senses. I deeply breathe in the scent of him. Come in close to kiss his soft skin. Watch his perfect beauty with a sense of wonder. The sound of his voice melts my heart.
When I was with him on Tuesday he was lamenting his first minor cold and the coming of baby teeth; he already has two. Even his lament was music to my ears. Listen to him sing it HERE.
It's no fun getting teeth, having a first cold, AND being sleepy. The lament, complete with wide open yawning, continues HERE.
You’ve heard the saying “Girls Rock? In my case it was literally true. Not in the musical sense, but in the banging back and forth against the back of a couch, or a in the car to the tune of my siblings complaining. I’ve outgrown most of my big motion rocking with the help of rocking chairs and by training my compulsion to be in constant motion down to one shaking foot. Even so, chairs that don’t move are useless to me, which is why my friend Jayn once gifted me with one of my all-time favorite Christmas presents: a swinging rope chair from Twin Oaks that she traded for her pottery at a craft fair. She had one in her house and I was known to chase children out of it in order to have it for myself. The one she gave me hangs in my living room today.
The swinging rope chair in my living room was my son Dylan’s favorite chair too, and when he moved into a cabin that he, Josh, and Joe built on the property, I gifted him with one. Now his chair hangs from the back deck porch at his family home in Roanoke. Someone who lives there likes it as much as we do.
See the boy in action HERE. I bet you can’t not smile at the sight of his delight.
Our weekend was almost ruined by a tech pain in the neck. “It’s all Geek Greek to me,” I said to Joe, after he had spent a couple of hours at the computer trying to remove a computer virus that disguised itself as antivirus program warning of viruses.
Our computer had a virus and I felt sick, because of it and for another reason. While Joe was navigating the matrix of the computer virus world, I was in a virtual tailspin with a bad case of vertigo.
When my latest bout of vertigo came back while at Bethany Beach last week, I tried to ignore it, the way you decide not to scratch poison ivy because you think not scratching will make it go away faster. But now I was holding on for my dear dizzy nauseous life.
But our weekend wasn’t a total loss because baby Bryce and his mom and dad came up from Roanoke for a visit. 
We tucked the sick computer in and went up to Chateau Morrisette Winery for brunch, even though I was feeling like pregnant woman with morning sickness and was stumbling a bit ( hoping no one thought I was drunk from the wine tasting).
After Joe read on my blog that I called walking the beach at sunset during my vacation my Vitamin B-each shot, he started calling B-ryce his vitamin B. It’s hard to feel bad with a new baby and enough vitamin B to go around. Bryce’s laughter is contagion I’m happy to catch. I sat down when I held him.
Photo: Empty lifeguard stand at the Floyd Country Club Pool, taken during our last swim of the season. The pool closes after Labor Day, another sign of the end of summer.
Joe and I went to a wedding.
I let him do the heavy lifting.
Leaving me with most of the kissing.
My son has a son.
And a beautiful family.
Blessings to my daughter-in law Alexis' sister Darla and her husband Adam. It was a beautiful wedding and fun party. Watch Kaylee’s strobe light dance HERE.
1. Powered by the Sun
2. Baby's Moon Roof
3. Flights of Fancy
4. Fleeting Youth
Post Note: The above photos were taken last Wednesday when my grandson Bryce's sister Kaylee and I babysat for him while his mother went to a class.
I don’t know what it means to be a grandmother. It’s probably a role you grow into. When my son and his wife went to a wedding this weekend, Joe and I had some bonding time with three week old Bryce. I introduced myself to him. “I’m your daddy’s mama,” I said, wanting him to know that I was a mama too and that he could relax and feel in good hands.
“I haven’t done this in a while, I said to his parents before they left. “But not too worry. I feel completely comfortable. Once mothering is in you, it never leaves,” I assured them. I also had some help, a more than willing partner called “Grampa Joe.”
It was like drinking in an infusion of love, getting a booster shot to ward off life’s automatic pilot. After five hours of feeding, changing, rocking, watching, and kissing Bryce, we drove home with his sweet smell all over us. I knew his mama would notice our smell on him because I remember when I was a young mother how heightened primal instincts were and how sense details came into play.
Zoom in for Your Close-up: Video Clip of Bryce is HERE. One day old photos are HERE.
1. I now have a folder on my desktop titled “Bryce Gabriel.”
2. He was born May 14, 2008 at 2:45 a.m. weighing a whopping nine pounds and a couple of ounces, just like his dad, Dylan, did when he was born in 1982.
3. I used up all the memory space on my camera and ran down the battery taking photos at the hospital on Wednesday afternoon. That's mom and dad and Bryce's big sister Kaylee in the above photo.
4. First time uncle, Josh thought he was going to be making pottery that morning but changed his plans when he heard the news and drove from Asheville to Roanoke to meet Bryce.
5. I put my reading glasses on so I could clearly see every wisp of wonder and read every facial expression on his 13 hour old face.
6. "He’s so cute!!! OMG! He's the cutest baby I've seen in a long time. He’s a living doll! He’s brilliant! I’m so happy for them, and Wow!” were some of the comments from other family members after seeing the photos I emailed that night. A video Joe took of me meeting my grandson is HERE.
