Christmas with grandchildren

We spent this last Christmas in Arkansas with our son Alex and his family, Arrate, Elise, Hannah, Alden, and Sabin. The family moved there from San Sebastian Spain last February. The triplets are five and a half, and Sabin was just 40 days old when we arrived. Our very special little Christmas present. Whoever said, “If I knew grandchildren were so much fun, I would have had them first,” really had it right!

With triplets that age, it was a three-ring circus. The Energizer Bunny can learn from them. Alden the story-teller: “Daddy, you know what?” Elise the organizer: “Hannah, you use that side of the doll-house and I’ll use this side.” And of course, Hannah, the dare-devil: “Hannah, don’t you dare do that!” They also taught us a more efficient way to count: “One, two, skip a few, ninety-nine, one hundred.”

We were Gram-mama and Gram-papa. We played dolls, Candyland, Chutes and Ladders, operated Alden’s remote-controlled monster Jeep, and got our sports and recreation from playing “Go Fish.”.

I spent a lot of time with little Sabin. In Basque, his name is “XABiN. I was with him for his first words. At first, I thought he was pulling a fast one and speaking Basque - my Basque is a little rusty - but I finally realized that he was saying: “E equals M C squared.”

I could sense that Sabin was a little befuddled in this multi-lingual household. Arrate speaks Basque to the triplets, the triplets speak Basque to each other (what an advantage this gives them in school!). Alex speaks English to them, Arrate speaks Spanish to the nanny, and Alex and Arrate speak Spanish to each other - a veritable Tower of Babel! So I taught Sabin Classic Mandarin.

It was a great learning experience. I taught Sabin some of the basics: primary colors, lullabies, quantum physics. He had some difficulty with fractions, but handled fractal and chaos theory (just observe the triplets!) with no trouble. Sabin learned how to pop the pacifier into my mouth on the first try, and could get me to fall asleep within three minutes. I also thumb wrestled with him. He beat me two out of three. I need to get back into my Strong Living class.

Sylvia and I are both suffering from acute withdrawal symptoms. We need to get back down there for a fix