It’s impossible to choose a favorite

So, Grandpa, what was your favorite part of the week-long visit to Indiana by your 8-year-old and 5-year-old grandsons?

Was it the 5-hour visit to the Indianapolis Zoo?

Or was it specific moments in that zoo visit: Holding Gabe on your lap during the dolphin show, watching Julian hold out a feeding stick for a budgie in one of the bird houses or gauging the size of their eyes when they looked at the tigers?

Was it the 4-hour visit to the Indiana State Museum that was Plan B after a baseball game was rained out?

Or was it specific moments in that museum visit: Julian making a rocket ship out of cardboard, the boys trying their hands at working a crosscut saw in the pioneer section or Gabe playing with a microscope?

Was it the 5.5-hour visit to the Indianapolis Children’s Museum?

Or was it specific moments in that visit: The boys staring at the giant water clock; Julian somber and thoughtful in the exhibit about Anne Frank, Ruby Bridges and Ryan White; Gabe high in the Playscape section as he climbed to the top; Julian pretending to clear “rubble” from a tunnel in an Egyptian tomb; Gabe trying to put together a rubber version of one of China’s terracotta warriors; or both boys falling to sleep on the drive south from Indy to Bloomington?

Was it watching the two boys interact with their nearly 5-month-old cousin Bea?

Was it a quiet moment on a Bloomington park bench watching the kids play?

Was it hearing the boys tell stories about their visit to the Loblolly with Curt Burnette of the Limberlost State Historic Site, about the “tadapul” of a bull frog that Curt scooped out of a prairie pothole along Veronica’s Trail?

Was it watching them dive into the books they’d brought home from the Jay County Library on their grandmother’s library card? Or was it watching them dive into our extensive collection on cartoon anthologies — Pogo, Foxtrot, Far Side, Peanuts and more — with the same sort of enthusiasm?

Was it that moment during a visit to the Levi Coffin House in Fountain City when you overheard Julian, who had been reading a timeline on the wall and had just learned about the Dred Scott decision, say, “You’ve got to be kidding me”? Wasn’t it rewarding to know a grandchild understood how wrong and un-American that Supreme Court decision was?

Was it having ice cream — two scoops each — as a family at The Chocolate Moose in Farmland, spoiling our dinner and enjoying every bite?

Was it taking the boys and their mom to Sharlette’s Fudgery to shop for treats to take back to their dad in Massachusetts?

Was it taking them into the pressroom at the newspaper office, lifting them up and allowing them to push a red button that rang a bell?

Was it seeing pictures of their visit to the U.S. Aggregates quarry southwest of Portland while their grandmother explained what that enormous hole in the ground is all about?

Was it sitting on the family room floor beside a battered old suitcase, unwrapping toy cars and trucks from your collection and allowing the boys to select several each as their own?

Was it watching pictures on the wall tilt a bit as the boys chased one another through the house?

Was it working with Julian to identify a backyard butterfly — a red admiral — after consulting with some books from the family library?

Was it homemade pizza, homemade muffins, homemade waffles? Or was it all that Fisher bacon?

Was it — on a gloomy and rainy Saturday — an indoor Easter egg hunt for the little guys?

Or was it — ultimately — all of the above?

All I know is we are tired.