Hailee Grace Lunte and Tristan Clark Cook

Almost eight years ago at 200 East Chestnut Street, on the third floor, my first grandchild was born five weeks premature. The first time I laid eyes on her she was laying on her back in an incubator, arms outstretched, in a nest of thread sized IV tubes. It seems impossible that May eleventh will be her eighth birthday. Although Hailee, and her cousin Tristan, have no blood of mine flowing through they're veins, my love for them makes them my grandchildren in every sense of the word.

About a month ago I asked Hailee if she was a girly-girl or a tom boy. She put her hand vertically just to the right of her nose and said "I'm this much girly-girl and that much tom boy." To me she's the smartest, cutest, most wonderful grand daughter in the world, and certainly the best baby ever to roll out of the third floor at 200 East Chestnut Street.

Hailee on Easter Sunday

Tristan will be three years old this May twenty eighth, another impossibility. Tristan was born at Norton Suburban East at the Women's Pavilion, a name which I'm sure the Norton Suburban PR people think of as marketing genius but it sounds ridiculous to me. What would a men's hospital wing be called? The Men's Road House?

The first time I saw eleven pound six ounce Tristan, Abby was holding him, a huge grin on her face. I'm not sure what she was happier about, the tough pregnancy being over, or her new baby son.

After Easter Sunday services I went back to get Tristan out of the nursery. He saw me and raised his arms for me to pick him up. He buried his head in my shoulder and patted me on the back.

Tristan waiting for his Easter Eggs to be hid.