My grandson Christian turned 11 today. It seems like only yesterday he was a toddler throwing the butter dish out the kitchen door. Ah, good times.

I never had any sons or brothers, so my grandsons are a continuing source of wonder and amusement for me: “Look at that! Boys do that. They’re just so different, aren’t they?” And as Christian is the oldest, I tend to scrutinize his behavior, sort of like a marine biologist observing a fascinating new species of plankton.

I don’t know if he is representative of all 11-year-old boys, but I suspect he isn’t far off the mark. I know it isn’t cool to wear a superhero T-shirt when you’re 11. I know it’s possible to put a 1,000-pc. Lego set together in under a day – don’t ask me how, but it is. And I know black is the preferred color for backpacks. He likes to play baseball and basketball because he’s good at it. I hope he never wants to play football because then I’d have to pretend to be happy.

Our conversation at his birthday party yesterday went like this:

“Christian, what’s it like turning eleven?”
“It’s okay.”
“How was camp?” (Because he was away at camp last week.)
“Fine.”
“How’s baseball going?”
“Good.”

We can go on like this for hours.

The butter dish episode is buried in the archives here somewhere. Long story short, while their parents were in the process of moving one day, I babysat 11-month-old Grace and little Christian, who had just turned two and was pretty much fed up with the whole relocation thing and basically just wanted his mother and got mad and threw the butter and the plastic butter dish out the kitchen door, although it landed right-side up, so no harm done. Come to think of it, that may have been the same year he broke my nose in a bizarre swing set incident. Oh, I don’t know, the good times all blend together after a while.

But mostly I want to say that he has grown into an amazingly kindhearted and thoughtful kid. He will let his two little boy cousins beat on him endlessly and never tell them to knock it off. He knows right from wrong and puts up with all sorts of adult craziness. He tolerates it when I kiss him (on the forehead). However, he stubbornly refuses to stop being allergic to half the food groups on the FDA pyramid. Maybe when he hits high school.

This is one of my favorite pictures of my grandson Christian, now six. Looking for trouble and loving it. We sort of knew what to expect when he was still a baby. Before he could walk he was tearing around in his walker, flailing the stick from his sister’s Easy Bake Oven. The kid always liked sticks. You had to move fast.

When he was one and walking, but you still couldn’t understand what he was saying, he’d get mad and let loose a torrent of abuse – gibberish really, but you knew by the tone and the finger-pointing it wasn’t good. His mother was left to say things like, “Don’t you take that tone with me, young man!” Which was complete nonsense, of course, but must have given her the illusion of control.

When he was two, he broke my nose. My fault actually. I was pushing him in their backyard swing when his little sister Grace came toddling by. It looked like the swing was going to clobber her, so I bent over to grab it and, momentum being what it is, Christian’s head met my nose. Crushed it. Lots of little bone pieces in there. When I looked up, the two of them were staring at me, innocent and clueless, as is the nature of grandchildren. I figure I saved Grace’s life, and she’ll give me some money one day.

When Christian was old enough for preschool, his mother signed him right up, hoping he would learn to get along with other little boys like him. There were no other little boys like him. And he didn’t like any of them. After yet another bad report, she said despairingly, “My God! My son is the bully!”

He got over it though. He has friends now and everything. In fact, I worry that he may be a little too sensitive and someone will hurt his feelings. You can’t win at this grandparent thing.