Our youngest grandsons came for a visit, and I was prepared, except for the part where I wasn’t. I pulled out a few of our saved toys and placed the Brio train set where there was plenty of room for them to spread out and build a train village. And then it happened. Felix, our ten-year-old, wasn’t interested at all, but Oliver, who is six, sat right down and started creating. He put several tracks together and glided the trains around them. It took me back to earlier days when I’d watched his dad play with those very tracks. It was sweet, and after about fifteen minutes, it was over. I didn’t even get a picture!

When I say over, I mean the beloved train set which my children and older grandchildren had spent hours of enjoyment playing with, no longer was needed in our home. It was the end of the line. Our grands are so used to playing games on phones that these old relics didn’t cut it anymore. I began to notice the transition several years ago with our now 13-year-old granddaughter Layna. The five grands before her were more used to floor play and actual toys, but when they started to use video/computer games more, her interest in traditional toys waned as well. Felix and Oliver followed suit. That is the state of things. I shudder to think of creativity lost, plus the art of bartering for the favorite train. These were foundational play opportunities.

Hello? Is anybody there or are you already on your phone? I’m as guilty as anyone when it comes to time on the stupid cell phone. But I didn’t see this coming, which happens more often when your grandkids don’t live near you. You lose track of what they’re into at any given time. But for me, this was not only the end of the line – it was the end of an era.

Perhaps I could have prolonged the termination of our train set if I could have gotten down on the floor and played with Oliver. That is what I typically would have done, but my current knee issues have already derailed anything that requires floor time. Since my recent knee surgery, I didn’t think it wise to put my caboose on the floor and play lest I needed an engine (or in my case an engineer) to help me back up.

At the end of the visit, the train was up for grabs. I always thought I’d give it to the youngest grandkids, but they are not interested, and I am okay with that. That train has left the station, albeit all too soon for this grandmother. But, with only one text, it has been rescued from the certain uncertainty of Good Will by my daughter-in-law Dacia who is only too happy to keep it on hand for when her boys have boys and girls of their own. Success!

These boys are in their late teens now, but I love this picture of them.

I sat on the couch with Felix and watched him play some kind of card game on his phone. He wanted to teach me, but my meager capacity to keep all those numbers and cards straight was more than I wanted to admit to him. I told him I’d learn it by watching him; he could teach me that way. It didn’t take. Now I knew how Oliver felt after fifteen minutes of the trains. It was enough. I’m beaten on both fronts.

It’s a good thing we have a pool. The boys don’t have easy access to one from their North Carolina home, so it makes up for a lot. I did play Marco Polo with them, though I don’t move as fast as I’d like. They didn’t care. We had great fun.

Any time with our kids and grandkids is special and I’ll play whatever they want me to play, except for Felix’s crazy card game or Clue. I do have limits. If I’ve never mentioned it before, my brain doesn’t work during the game of Clue. My kids took us to an escape room and my brain melted down like I was captive in that board game, trying to keep a good attitude when everyone was writing stuff on their stupid little clue sheets and I was making a grocery list on mine. Maybe that is why I never won.

Our now-thirteen-year old Layna.