The first grandson, Rowan, started school last week in Chicago.
Pre-school.
He has just turned 3.
Pre-school is three hours a day, four days a week, increasing to five after Christmas.
It seems quite a lot of organised school for a very little boy who only three years ago was the size of a teapot.
But then again, I have no idea what educationalists do with tiny children these days.
I started school when I was 5.
Our daughter Shannon said Rowan was a bit worried on his first day.
He may roar around their apartment like Attila The Hun, but first day at school is another thing altogether.
They sang a song about butterflies in the tummy as a soothing segue on the way to school, but when they got there, the mother still had to prise the son from her leg.
But Rowan duly went through the door all by himself - parents are not allowed in the classroom.
He wasn't crying.
So Shannon didn't cry either.
She just went around the corner and cried where no-one could see her.
Three hours is a long time to have twitchy feet and fear in your heart, but it was eventually time to pick Rowan up.
Shannon said he looked very important as he sat in the hallway waiting for her with his art and lunch menu for the month.
Rowan had enjoyed his first day, and reported incredulously that one child was allergic to apples.
He wouldn't tell his mother what he had had for lunch, as he said school is for children, not grown-ups, but he did admit to knocking back some celery, his favourite.
He also went wees.
He didn't ask the teacher, Ms Soriano, he just went, because that is what you do.
He said it's the same for poohs.
But the toilet was too small for standing up, so Rowan said he sat there like he was sitting in the sun and just let it go.
It should perhaps be added at this point that there is a toilet in the classroom.
Rowan was a bit less keen to go on the second day.
As school approached, he suggested that perhaps he should go home and cuddle his cat, not the real one, Gorby, the one with the facial birthmark the same as the former Russian leader, but the stuffed one with stripes.
He was concerned about a boy called Nathan, who Rowan said had wobbled him on the first day.
Wobbled him? What mother would be rendered less than catatonic when informed of such a thing? Shannon told us she was of a mind to give Nathan a damn good wobbling in return, but when she saw Nathan, a very small boy with a Mohawk and tear-filled eyes, she felt like cuddling him instead.
Rowan enjoyed his second day.
Ms Silva, the Spanish teacher, sensed his anxiety and threw him high in the air, and he liked that.
It is unfortunate that in this country, high school teachers are not allowed to do this with troubled pupils.
Later he went upstairs to the library, which made him very excited. He loves his books.
We had the three of them on the webcam last Sunday morning, the second grandson's eyes now old enough, 4 months, to follow his big brother's every move with fascination and wonder.
After four days of pre-school, Rowan, his brain sharpened by educational celery, his body tensile-tough from wobbling, looked discernibly older and more worldly-wise.
He drew us a picture of a dinosaur.
Do you know what kind it is, Grandad, he asked.
A brontosaurus, I suggested hopefully.
No, he said.
A hippopotamus, I suggested, thinking he is probably old enough now for a suffix joke.
No, he said, loudly, almost as if he considered me an idiot.
Apparently it was a stegosaurus - that was what the pointy bits were.
I really should have started school at 3.
Roy Colbert is a Dunedin writer.
