Yesterday I told you about the ninth birthday of our second granddaughter Kelsey.

Today is our first granddaughter, Ashley’s tenth birthday.

Ashley was a bit over 8 pounds when she was born and she and her brother both had cheeks that looked as though they had apples stuffed in the sides of them for the longest time.

Ashley was born on her Dad’s birthday and, because they wanted her birth and later the birth of their son to be private for just them, we waited until we got the call she was here. I believe there were lots of calls to the room from me in the meantime, though.

I remember when we first walked in I saw my daughter in the bed, looking exhausted, and my son-in-law with a grip on that little baby I thought he was never going to release.

He finally asked me if I wanted to hold her and I held her in my arms for the very first time and fell in love with a baby for the second time in about 7 months. Our first grandson had been born the previous December, making us first time grandparents.

Ashley was kind of stubborn when it came to taking her pictures in utero, as she kept her legs crossed and kept us guessing her sex up until three days before she was born, at which time I took my daughter shopping to find suitable clothes to bring a little girl home from the hospital, and little girl things for her to have after she got home. Up until then everything was neutral, but we didn’t do a lot of pink.

Her coming home dress was blue with pink and white in it and a nice white collar.

She had the least amount of hair of all four of our grandchildren, but then her mother had the least amount of hair of the two of my children.

Ashley is also a very bright child who happened to have skipped second grade and has maintained an “A” average throughout school. She’ll start middle school in the fall (actually August) and will be the first of our grandchildren to graduate from high school and go on to college.

It’s good she skipped a grade because I had been fretting over how to be at hers and Patrick’s (our older grandson) graduations at the same time. (They live in different states.) Now I don’t have that problem.

Ashley has done ballet and swimming, but is mostly interested in swimming for leisure and not competition. She’s our book worm. She loves to read, so when middle school gave a reading assignment of 3 or 4 books for this summer she had them finished up in a couple of weeks.

Next, she’s on to do some community service work that is required by the time she gets through sixth grade. Her Dad has her lined up for something, but I don’t recall right now what it is. I do know by the time she’s finished she will have just 3 hours of community service to finish before she finishes sixth grade.

She and I have talked about it and I’ve suggested she go to a nursing home and visit and read to some of our elder citizens. She thinks that’s a good idea, but then anything her “Pooky” tells her is always a good idea.

Yes, I’m “Pooky” to her and her brother and my husband is “Da-ha”. I called all my grandchildren pumpkin from the time they were born and she translated pumpkin into “Pooky”. My husband’s first name is Don and when I said, “Let’s call Grandpa. Don!” for something one time while she was little she translated that into “Da”, which became “Da-ha”.

Thankfully our other grandchildren call us “Grandma” and “Grandpa”.

We are so very proud of every grandchild we have. Each is different from the others and we love each of them just for who they are.

It’s true that if I had known how much fun grandchildren would have been I would have had them first.

Happy birthday, Pumpkin, and to your Dad too!