Internet can be a pot of gold

Who are those two babies? And why are they in that cooking pot?
Is this some sort of weird manifestation of satirist Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” which facetiously suggested cooking babies?
Of course not.
It’s communication between parents and grandparents in the Internet age.
And while it might look pretty weird to a time traveler from, say, the 1950s, it’s perfectly normal.
Let me explain, or try to.
First off, the babies are two of our grandchildren. The smaller one is Gabriel James Veloso, our daughter Emily’s son, who was born on Christmas Eve. The somewhat larger one — with the big grin — is Johanna Ruth Lawton, our daughter Maggie’s daughter, who was born in August.
Why are they in a cooking pot?
That takes a little more explanation.
Back when grandchild number one was born — that would be Julian Charles Veloso, now age 3 — his parents thought it would be fun to chart his growth photographically. They looked around their third-floor condo in Allston, a part of greater Boston, and zeroed in on a big cooking pot.
The idea was, the pot stays the same size while the baby grows larger and larger.
These days, the top of the pot comes up to about Julian’s knees. One of these days — probably about age 14 — we expect to see him photographed with the pot on his head.
Admittedly, some of the early photos were a little weird. Baby Julian fit too neatly in the pot, way too much like a pot roast for anyone to be completely comfortable.
But as he grew, the idea took hold. Soon, Julian was the master of the pot, growing by leaps and bounds.
It was especially fun when he started standing in the pot, rather than sitting. He’d outgrown the object that was supposed to measure his growth.
When Johanna came along last summer, her parents opted for a different point of measurement.
(For the record, Johanna is named for her father’s father — John “Jack” Lawton — and her mother’s father — me. It’s a complete coincidence that we were both born John and went by Jack.)
Johanna’s photo measurement hasn’t ordinarily been in a pot.
Instead, she’s had her picture taken in front of a tall charcoal rubbing of the sarcophagus of an Anglican bishop. (I know it sounds a little odd, but it’s essentially a full-length black and white portrait of a medieval religious figure.)  Unlike the pot, the bishop will still work when Johanna is 12 years old and having a growth spurt.
At least that’s how it was until Saturday night.
That’s when Maggie and her husband Josh and baby Johanna decided to stop by for a visit with Emily and her husband Mike, 3-year-old Julian, and infant Gabriel.
Somewhere along the evening’s progression, someone thought it might be a good idea to get a new picture of Gabe in the pot. After all, it was his 5-month birthday.
And then things got sillier.
Someone thought it would be a good idea to get Johanna and Gabe together in the pot, sort of a double-header.
Not for cooking, of course.
But to share with grandparents.
So, back in Indiana, just about bedtime on a Saturday night, we clicked on one last look at a Flickr site.
And grinned. And laughed. And woke up smiling the next day.
It’s not easy being long-distance grandparents. And there are aspects of the Internet that drive me crazy on a pretty regular basis.
But when it works, it works.[[In-content Ad]]