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While bigger siblings Edwina and George worked through the things they needed to work through with the help of their grandparents, baby Ludlow grandson five-year-old Lil' Robert just kept doing what he was doing, which at a particular moment was having a conversation with equally self-possessed eight-year-old Gracie Trent next door.

“They are fun to watch interacting,” Sgt. Vincent Trent said, “because they are the youngest, and yet the two most self-possessed and complete little personalities you will ever meet.  Most people at their age – most people, for that matter – are looking around trying to figure out who they are going to be.  Lil' Robert and Gracie?  Nope.  They are looking around knowing who they are, and trying to find out where the world is ready.”

“And the thing is,” Mrs. Trent said, “it's both their grandparents, sitting there full grown in their little souls, that is causing that.  Genetics are funny!”

“Time put in with people who are done looking and know who they are when you are essentially the same kind of person does that,” Sgt. Trent said to Mrs. Trent.  “Both your parents, and my mother – and my father although only Melvin and Vanna are old enough to remember him – are people who are on a mission and so there is no confusion.  Capt. and Mrs. Ludlow are like that too, so, there you have it.”

“The other interesting thing about the Ludlows – you know how most of the time kids go through the stages of girls and boys fighting each other because they are girls and boys?" Mrs. Trent said.  "The Ludlows don't really do any of that – I mean, Edwina and George get into it sometimes, but even that's not a big deal.”

Sgt. Trent slipped his arms around his wife.

“Melvin and Vanna never fought either, and Gracie and Milton rarely get into it either – and you know Velma looks in all directions and is all 'I can out-think you, so why fight'?  Part of this has to do with although we had our troubles before getting back together, they never saw that, so fighting between man and woman as just not the model.  Now you would think Capt. Ludlow would be pretty hard to live with, and Mrs. Ludlow is not a pushover … but whatever problems they have, they settle calmly, because that basso profundo voice of his can't be hidden when it is getting angry.”

“You know, it's what you don't hear that tells the tale,” Mrs. Trent said, and smiled as her husband kissed the back of her neck.

“Exactly,” he said.  “But speaking of what people haven't heard yet ...”

Lil' Robert's voice had gone up in his excitement; his colossal alto was the little echo of his grandfather's great bass and had cut through the Trents' conversation.

“ … Oh, I'll be fine, Gracie, because you know I work out with Papa and so I can do all this.  I landed without a scratch.  I'm not sure about the rest of it, though.”

“You know, you probably need to go talk to your adults about that tree situation,” Gracie said.  

“Yeah, I guess they do act better if we take them to it, instead of them finding it.  I don't think adults like surprises either.”

“Ain't it the truth, Robert.  You might want to go now and show it to your grandmother before your grandfather gets home.”

“Yep, good idea, because I'm fine now, but I kinda like my behind right where it is, and how it is.”

“It's like Grandma Velma always says: Jesus can save you out of any situation, and the way He does it every day is by getting us to do the right thing before God the Father has to send somebody to get us about it.”

“And God the Father definitely has Papa for that stuff – gotta go, Gracie!  Bye!”