The request was innocent.

The opportunity was exciting.

The timing was perfect.

There was absolutely nothing that could go wrong.

Fourteen hours later, I’m not so sure.

My son Andrew would be tied up all day on Saturday with a tennis tournament. My daughter in law is a nurse and she was on call. The other grandparents were out of town for the weekend. My son called and asked if we could be in Lake Charles by 7:30 a.m. on Saturday morning and babysit Emerson until Andrew finished the tennis tournament.

Absolutely we will babysit our grandson!

We left Natchitoches at 4:45 a.m. and arrived in Lake Charles at the appointed hour.

My son mumbled some instructions to my bride and the babysitting began. We can translate a few of Emerson’s words. We have been taught his sign language motions. Emerson is learning sign language, which is cool. Emerson always runs to me when he sees me. I love that. I pick him up and he always has the same greeting.

“Outside.”

He knows few words. “Outside” is his best because he always wants to go outside. He has added the baby sign language request of “More” to outside. We also discovered that he has learned to say the word, “please.” When we are not listening as Emerson wishes, he points.

Outside was fun in the morning. We walked on the wet grass. We threw the tennis balls around. We played in the swing. Emerson sat on the porch and counted the ants that walked across the porch. Another word that Emerson knows is the word “airplane.” Anything in the sky, be it bird, moth, insect or an actual airplane is “airplane.” We spent much of the morning looking up at the sky identifying everything flying as an airplane.

Between trips outside, Emerson came inside and went immediately to the kitchen and pointed to the candy on the counter. He is a busy little boy who doesn’t slow down, ever!

We are grandparents who won’t say, “No” to a sweet 20 month old saying, “Please” and “More.” We were trying to keep up with Emerson and his relentless requests.

Did you know that a 20 month old has no regard for College Game Day on ESPN? Emerson cared little that Alabama was the CBS afternoon football game. I am thankful that during the Bama game he took a nap. Emerson was not interested in watching LSU in the evening game. By the time the LSU game rolled around he wanted to watch Elmo, otherwise known as Sesame Street. Once the sun went down there was no more outside. He insisted on Elmo!

My son walked in the door at 9:00 p.m. We had watched Emerson for nearly 14 hours. He had plenty of energy remaining, we were spent.

I understand why young people have babies; grandparents are too old to do this every day! We were exhausted with a two and a half hour drive home.

I learned that God’s richest blessings can be exhausting. That is why He supplies us with strength for the journey, especially babysitting journeys.

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