Which Five? The Babies And I ...

Windell Wilkie Park, Elwood

There were five of us on that park swing.   It lured us from our picnic and our investigations of the glubbing water under the bridge.  The big catalpa leaves seen in the ripples were declared to be lily pads.

Parents stayed in the shelter house shade.  But five of us ventured forth to the swing.  Which five?  Why, the babies and I, of course.

Like the John Anderson song, "we were just a'swingin' " the babies and I.

"Just a'swinging" included 3 y. o. Miss Lilly, on the far left end, her face showing concern for her security, little 2 y.o. Alayna bouncy, carefree as happy as could be, me holding 9 mo. old Master Jacob who was content gnawing his orange block but looking around with curious eyes, and 5 y.o. Jayden, the "let's go"  boy.  He wasn't sitting!

Jayden started out sitting proper, then he had to sit backwards with his feet dragging between the seat and the back, and finally he stood on the arm rest with his hands on the chain making an X with his body as we swung forward and backward, forward and backward!  We swung and swung.  And we reminisced.

"Jayden," I started, "I held you in my arms when you were a baby.  It was at your parents' wedding."  His mommy and daddy are actually his foster parents who are in process of adopting Alayna and him.

Miss Lilly considers his story, then says, "I was a baby.  But now I'm a big girl.  I'm a Lilly."

To keep the conversation going, I added, "And Jacob is getting big, too.  He's learning to walk with his push behind zebra toy."

Jayden chimes in with big boy braggadocio, "I had a zebra toy.  And mom threw it in the road and it got run over."  He's big into Power Rangers and their prowess these days, so I take this story with a grain of salt.

Little Alayna, not to be left out, takes big brother's story from there, "When I was a baby I got run over," and she looks down and spies her little black patent leather shoes, "and my shoes, too."  She adds a final word, "SMOOSH!"

"Yah," mimics Jayden, "SMOOSH!"

Smoosh!  I gave them each a grandmotherly sweet kiss, five smooshes all around!

And there you have it, in a little park, with gurgling water sounds,  "just a'swingin'", and babies.   Babies talking about when they were babies.