Dropping in

I had a pleasant and unexpected visit from my folks this Saturday. I called my mom that morning, knowing that she and my dad were driving back from Florida following a three-week cruise/disney/general "ha ha, I'm retired and can drift through life as I please" adventure. To my surprise, my dad asked what I was doing that night at 5:30.

"Nothing." Standard Saturday evening programming at the McCallen house.

So my parents invited themselves over to dinner (they bought the pizza) and then to stay the night. Hooray! No really. I like my parents.

(That's one of those statements I never thought I would say when I was 15–19ish. I finally realized that my folks were upstanding, cool people of the world when I went to college. In general, they've been an important, cheer-me-up part of my life ever since.)

Their carefree, tanned selves arrived around 6:30. The pizza man arrived shortly thereafter, and we popped in the movie "Wild Hogs" (a good one, surprisingly!). Noah entertained us all—crawling after the kitties and later zooming his walker car into the couches, the walls, the chair, our feet, you name it.

My dad couldn't take all the excitement and ended up crashing around 10 PM. Mom stayed up to visit with me and David until the yawns got the best of us around 11:30.

I love those conversations with my mom. It seems like we can never get through all we have to say. Not that we're hashing out deep thoughts or anything. It's more of "did you hear about...?" "next week is the big..." "I can't believe he's growing so fast..." Our gossip is innocent enough, and it's mixed with just the right amount of the ethics, politics and grown-up opinions that my family instilled in me and some that I discovered in myself.

Every time I get together with my mom it's the same way... we find ourselves talking late into the night. And it's wonderful!

I hope that I am able to do that with Noah and my other child(ren) someday. I think it's a great example of good parenting... just to be able to TALK to your children is so important. And fulfilling. And insightful. Good stuff.

Anyway, here are some pics of Noah amusing himself with Grandma and Papa Compan. They really do love their sixth grandson! :)