When Your Youngest Grandchild Becomes A Teenager

We celebrated Christmas with the family on Saturday, December 27, in 1997. Preston & Shalea and their four little ones were there even though their fifth child was due shortly after the New Year.
Neither Mom nor I were surprised when we got a call the next day telling us that we had a new grandson/great-grandson. We were happy the baby was a boy after three girls.
It was a few days before we made it to Des Moines to meet Devin Michael. He was still in the NICU at Mercy Hospital - luckily not as premature as his big brother had been. I didn't have to wait three weeks to hold him.
Devin was the youngest of five children born in a little over six years. That means as of today, my youngest son and his wife are the parents of five teenagers! Somehow they have managed to make it this far. No doubt they will continue to do fine. I'm just waiting for when their grandchildren begin arriving. Instead of downsizing when the kids move out, they may have to get a bigger house!


Devin had just turned one when we celebrated his Great-Grandma Ruth's 80th birthday. We held our family Christmas dinner first that day before sharing Mom's birthday at an open house at the Community Center in Corning.
Devin was so cute as he pushed the cart down the hallway. His blond hair and curls were very much like his Dad's had been at that age.


Before his second birthday, he'd had a hair cut. It made him look so much older.
I was able to get this picture before he got into the cake and frosting.



Even though I didn't get to spend quite as much time with Devin and Dominique when they were little as I did with the older three, there were still lots of memories made at the farm when we moved back to SW Iowa.
Here Devin is with some pieces of wood left over from one of our building projects. I told the boys they could make anything they wanted to.
There were also annual Easter egg hunts and spring yard rakings. Devin was always a willing helper.











It wasn't always all work. We had play times, too. One of them was a weekend in Council Bluffs. We took the boys to the (Offutt) Strategic Air and Space Museum where they got to sit in the cockpit of one of the planes on display. It's a much different museum than the one I took their Dad to at Offutt Air Base in Bellevue when he was their age.
I think this was the same weekend when a little girl was smiling at Devin at the hotel where we stayed. We started kidding him about being a "chick magnet" which he didn't like at the time.
Now that he is a teenager, he'll probably like the fact that the girls find him attractive.
Devin's career path might mimic his great-uncle, Dick's. He seems most interested in mathematics and sciences. It will be fun to see where his passions take him.