“Random lap test!”
Capt. R.E. Ludlow started chuckling as his four youngest grandchildren came running in the middle of his conversation with Mr. Thomas Stepforth … he had warned the elder grandfather that it was inevitable.
“So, my seven-year-old, Amanda, has this thing about my business partners and relatives – her main goal in life is to feel safe and protected and make sure other people feel the same way because she was severely neglected in foster care. She's probably also the purest empath I've ever met beside my wife.
“And then, eight-year-old Edwina is me all over again in the sense that she has been through some bad stuff really young – also in foster care – but is coming out swinging. She is my warrior princess grandchild, and her thing is, if you hurt anybody in the family, you've got to die. She will break bad – I wish I coud get hold to whoever let her watch Breaking Bad in foster care and break bad there, but, it's too late – if she feels that she or we are threatened, she will do damage, and then the other one who is me come again on the gentler side is my baby grandson, five-year-old Lil' Robert, He is normally a big sweetheart, but he will jump right in there if it's us he has to defend. Those two will kick you in the shin and get you to their level real quick – the yelling alone can defeat a many a foe!
“But, anyway, in talking with their thoughtful big brother, my ten-year-old Andrew, they got this idea: good people know how not to drop children. So, if they see new people coming into the family fold, and I'm OK with them, they are going to random lap test those people. You and Mrs. Stepforth are next.”
Said test was held: Mr. and Mrs. Stepforth had Amanda climbing up in one lap, and Lil' Robert and six-year-old Grayson in the other, and then swapping, while Edwina observed.
“Did we pass?” Mrs. Stepforth asked later.
“Yep – y'all are approved to hang out with our family!” Edwina said.
“Mrs. Stepforth is definitely the soft one and you can definitely go right to sleep there,” Amanda said, “but Mr. Stepforth is a good, strong snuggler, too.”
“But we kinda knew that,” Grayson said, “because Gracie, Milton, Velma, and Vertran are people whose snuggleability is strong.”
“Look, Grayson, let me tell you – at six, you can believe whatever you want to believe, but as you get toward eight and above, you learn people are horrible, and you gotta trust, but verify!” Edwina said.
“I don't understand half of what you just said, because I'm six, and I'm not sure you even understand all of it, because six and eight are not that far,” Grayson said, “but I do know good snuggleability when I see it.”
“Grayson,” Capt. Ludlow said, “is the quiet side of my no-nonsense personality. He and Edwina can really get into it because they are both stubborn, but basically she pushes, he establishes a boundary, and they move on. Grayson is never going to bother you, like I don't waste my time bothering people, and he is much more calm in natural temperament than I am, but he is just like me in that if he gets bothered, look out!”
Mr. Stepforth laughed, and then moved the grown-up conversation onward.
“Your business is these grandchildren,” he said. “You know them well.”
“They are my children now – I have adopted them,” Capt. Ludlow said, “and yes, I take it as my sacred duty to make them my business. If I made my fellow soldiers my business, and defending this country as my business for 33 years, at the expense of their parents, then by no means now, with no excuse at all in retirement, can I not put my ability to focus where it should belong.”
“So what are you planning to do when the Ludlow Bubbly blows up to about ten times its present size?” Mr. Stepforth said.
“I didn't see all that,” Capt. Ludlow said, “but I'll take a billionaire's word for it. I'll also take a billionaire's money to sell it to him.”
“Yep, Grayson is indeed like you!” Mr. Stepforth said. “That did not take long!”
The two men laughed, and their descendants to the second generation were happy.
“Now, our families are snuggling,” Amanda said as she hugged Mr. Stepforth's granddaughter eight-year-old Gracie Trent.
“Ain't it the truth, Mandie, ain't it the truth,” Gracie said.
“It is kinda nice,” Edwina said.
“Yeah, because, see, now we get to eat in more houses!” Lil' Robert said.
“And see the houses, and what they do with their Lego sets,” Grayson said.