So I’ve been wondering whether we’ve all outgrown the FinallyNana blog, which I had created to share how much I longed to become a grandmother, my excitement upon finally becoming one, and my many and varied Nana experiences since the time of Cooper’s birth seven years ago. But as Cooper is growing up, I wondered whether the blog is still relevant to our family and to my readers.
In trying to decide about this by initially reviewing our visits with Cooper in 2023, I noticed all the activites that Papa Jesse was directly involved with our grandson. As Cooper has grown from babyhood and toddlerhood into a boisterous child, his interests now coincide with his grandfather’s very active boyhood behavior. So I decided to focus this post on how Papa Jesse has been doing as a grandfather.
While reviewing the 2023 photos from Fiji, California and Telluride, I was also reminded of Nana’s involvement through organization and experiences, thus realizing that I may still have a lot to share as Finally Nana. But first, I’ll describe how Cooper is now at the perfect age to be entertained by Finally Papa.
Of course, Jesse was just as excited to be a grandfather as I was to be a grandmother.
While frontline caring for infants and toddlers was not his forte, Papa Jesse was definitely a helpful sidekick to Nana as we babysat for Cooper in his early years.
Jesse participated in our first grandparent outing with newborn Cooper, where he was born in Brisbane, Australia, when we ended up at the local liquor store. Grandparents behaving badly?
When we visited our Fiji family for the year-end holidays when infant Cooper was 4 months old and stayed at the Outrigger Hotel along the Coral Coast, Nana and Papa had an early foray into short-term baby sitting to give his parents some alone time.
Two months later, Nana and Papa had their first intensive babysitting duty in Santa Barbara, California, where Dr. Stacy brought six-month old Cooper during her multi-day, environmental biology meeting. Nana appreciated having Papa’s extra pair of hands as she re-learned infant care, whether mundane activities in the VRBO apartment or during excursions in the area, including the nearby marina, the Santa Monica Zoo, lunch at a Mexican restaurant.
We grandparents had more practice in Cooper care at about the 10-month marker, when we returned to Fiji in conjunction with Jesse’s participation in a hand surgery course at the Intercontinental Hotel, Natadola Bay.
Stacy convinced us to return to Fiji only two months later for a 2-4-1: their intimate beachside wedding followed by Cooper’s big first birthday celebration just two days later.
To further show Papa Jesse’s involvement as a caring grandfather, here are a lot more photos, sometimes in tandem with Nana Beryl. So this blog is essentially becoming a photo essay of Finally Papa.
Of course, as soon as Cooper was capable, Papa got involved with Cooper play and sports.
When Cooper was only two years old and visited us at our Weston, Mass home, longtime soccer player Papa was delighted to be kicking the ball around with his happy grandson.
Papa was involved with lots of other Cooper activities when his mom left him with us in November, 2018, for several days to attend a marine meeting in Belize.
As Cooper continued to grow up, he and Papa have shared lots of playtime, inclueing many more ball sports and fun activities in many different locales.
We were fortunate to visit our family in Fiji at the beginning of March, 2020, immediately before all international travel was discontinued due to the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic.
As you have likely noticed, we were very fortunate to have so many visits with our grandson since his August, 2016, birth, despite our family’s distant Fiji life. To that we give much credit to our daughter Stacy for providing many opportunities for our get-togethers worldwide. However, Covid sadly put a shrieking halt to that before Cooper was four years old. In fact, we missed being together with Cooper completely while he was a four year-old.
For 21 months, we only connected with Cooper by Facetime, not to take lightly that amazing technological advancement in communication. Sadly, however, Nana and Papa were those little old people on a telephone screen who tended to interrupt Cooper’s more entertaining screen time or real life play time. We were not making any new memories to reflect on with our grandson. But there was a friendly competition developing, as Cooper informed his grandfather, ”I can run faster than you now, Papa! I can beat you.” Never one to shirk from a physical challenge, Jesse continued to raise the subject of The Race on our FaceTime visits, keeping the competitive spirit alive.
So you can imagine what Papa Jesse suggested to Cooper as soon as we were together in Fiji after our 21 months apart. Of course, a race! Even Papa Jesse was not so competitive to intentionally beat a four year-old. (Sorry, Nana missed filming the event.) But we were ecstatic to spend time with Cooper at 4 years, 4 months old, starting with our obligatory 2-day, Fiji country entry quarantine, staying at the Marriott Resort, Momi Bay, We renewed our love and made new common memories. Here are some more photos, especially Papa and Cooper together:
As you might recall from reading a prior Finally Nana blog post, this first “post” covid reunion with our Fiji family was inadvertently extended another week when the whole family came down with covid! That did give Papa Jesse more play time with Cooper, trying out baseball when covid-recovered Stacy bought a wiffle ball and bat.
You can see that the extended 2021-22 Fiji trip was quite memorable for all of us, and especially for Papa’s engaging in more activities with growing-up Cooper. So we weren’t feeling too bad about having to wait 5 months for the next visit, which would be to Nana and Papa’s new Florida house in June, 2022, including a sidetrip to the Orlando amusement mecca at almost 6-year old Cooper’s request.
Next fabulous get together was in France and Spain in November, 2022, when Cooper was 6 years old.
Nana and Papa returned to Fiji in March, 2023. At 6 & 1/2 years old, Cooper was becoming even more athletically capable which edged playtime up a notch with Papa.
During the Fiji visit, Nana booked accommodations for 3 nights at nearby Nanuku where Jason was their executive chef at that time, and Cooper stayed with his grandparents at the resort.
Each morning Papa and Cooper took a bike ride together on the Nanuku property. How fun was that!
Cooper also enjoyed participating in the nightly sunset torch lighting ceremony at Nanuku.
And of course there were lots of fun meal times together, with Cooper’s favorite choices of chips (fries) and pizza.
Three months later, Nana and Papa met Stacy and Cooper near Monterey, CA, where Stacy had a meeting of her organization’s marine division of Wildlife Conservation Society. Stacy had requested us for Cooper care while she attended this meeting at the Asilomar Conference Center along the scenic Pacific Coast in Pacific Grove, where we all stayed. A great place to kid sit with so much to do in the area.
Of course, one of our first activities was our visit to the outstanding Monterey Bay Aquarium.
It really took two grandparents to keep track of fleet-footed Cooper as he sprinted between the exhibits.
Where Papa Jesse was concerned, soccer is always an activity choice, so we had brought a soccer ball from home. We took Cooper, who had started playing soccer in Fiji, to a local soccer field, but unfortunately it was already in use: by a herd of deer! And they were holding their ground, with no intention of relinquishing the field to us.
Another day we spent at the Monterey pier and took a boat ride in Monterey harbor with views of sea otters and sea lions.
We had our latest Cooper visit when he came with his parents to join us in Telluride, Colorado, in September. Lots more fun for Papa and Cooper. They played pool, went fishing, fed the ducks, played soccer (on a deer-free field) and baseball. And we all went to a rodeo, yahoo!
So this has been quite a photo memory essay of Jesse since he became Finally Papa. Our next Cooper time will be a Fiji visit for the year-end holidays. Cooper will be almost 7 and 1/2 years old, and I’m betting that he’ll be able to outrun 77 year-old Papa, fair and square.
Comentarios