A Balloon

August 10th, 2026

How do you connect with some kids who you haven’t seen for almost two years?

When the three children are quite young (ages seven, five, and three), you really don’t connect with them. You certainly can’t establish a relationship in twelve days, especially if you are more than sixty years older than they are. You may be their grandfather, but you are really a guest, a visitor, somebody who is just passing through.

My wife and I are visiting our grandkids in Texas. We live in Wisconsin. We are usually separated from these children by over a thousand miles of geographical distance. We are also separated by experience. Even if we lived next door to these kids, we still might not have a solid bond. We live on the periphery of each other’s reality. They don’t know us and we hardly know them.

We brought our other grandson, Asher, with us to visit our Texan grandkids. Our relationship with Asher is profoundly different from the one we have with the three children from the South. We are with Asher each and every day, often all day. We know Asher, as well as any grandparent can know their grandchild. We have an extremely deep connection with Asher, and we have a very tenuous one with the other children.

Asher has been playing each day with his cousins, and they are getting along quite well. It took Asher less than a day to fit in with these other kids. That’s excellent. My wife has found it relatively easy to slip into her role as “Oma”, which is German for grandma. She plays card games with Texan kids and interacts with them in a relaxed and natural way.

I struggle with establishing a connection with kids. I don’t know what to say to them and I don’t want to push myself upon them. I mostly observe them and try to know them in that way. I would require months to really became their “grandpa”. I don’t have much time. We only have twelve days here, and half of those days are already gone.

Several days ago, their mother bought all of them balloons. All the children played with them inside of the house, seeing as it was 100 degrees outside. Then the kids’ mom and my wife had to make a trip to buy school supplies and new clothes. They took the older two Texan kids with them. I was home babysitting Asher and the three-year-old boy, Wyatt. Wyatt has never spoken to me. He keeps me at a distance. While his mama was away, he grew sad. He didn’t want to watch the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse with Asher. He missed his mom. I found a balloon and started to bounce it back and forth with him. Wyatt smiled and we played together until his mama came home with the school stuff from Walmart.

A balloon helped me to connect with Wyatt, at least a little bit.

That’s a win.