My son-in-law had a saxophone recital this week. My future daughter-in-law is defending her doctoral dissertation. These are significant life moments, and the family is rallying around both of them with appropriate enthusiasm and support.

I was with the baby.

To be fair, Ellie’s other grandma was in town for the recital, and she graciously babysat Ellie during the day so I could have some Andy time. This left her with a clear conscience when I accepted the recital shift. All of us attended the dinner portion of the evening, which was the part I was looking forward to anyway. The pizza was good.

The recital was held at OU, which meant Ellie and I spent an hour roaming the halls of a building not designed with either of us in mind — me like a slightly confused mall Santa, her like someone who has never encountered a carpeted ramp and intends to fix that immediately.

We walked a lot. With Ellie, walking means holding both her hands while she does something between a march and a controlled fall. Her legs can’t quite keep up with the ambition, but viewed from the side, the illusion of running is convincing. She seems to enjoy it. The grandpa executing the maneuver gets winded faster than he’d like to admit, so we don’t overdo it.

One of the hockey boys had left a neon yellow golf ball in their room, and once I introduced it to Ellie, every white ball I’d ever collected on my walks became an afterthought. We found a carpeted ramp — one of those long, gentle slopes that make stairs optional — and developed a game. She’d release the ball from the top. I’d stand below and try to kick it gently back up toward her. She’d decide, with visible deliberation, whether to crawl up to meet it or scramble down after it.

At one point the ball rolled toward her from above and she spotted it over her left shoulder. Something clicked in her baby brain and she decided the correct response was to lead with her right leg, which required a small full-body flip. She didn’t intercept the ball. But she committed to the plan completely — a tiny, determined engineer working a problem she hadn’t quite solved yet.

I lost the golf ball somewhere in all of this. I ordered a six-pack of colored ones on Amazon that night.

When two college students passed by during our ramp experiments, I mentioned something about developing her eye for the putting game. They smiled the way young people smile at old men doing inexplicable things with babies. Politely. With their whole faces.

We found a bench and ate. Cheerios, and some apple-strawberry star-shaped things that dissolve before they become a choking hazard. I favored the method where the snack is secured between my lips and Ellie retrieves it with her fingers. As the session went on, her hands got progressively damper. Baby slime. Nothing toxic.

A man walking the hallway stopped and watched us for a moment. “First grandchild?” he asked. I confirmed. He nodded like he knew something. “She’s the one who’ll pick your nickname.” Then he kept walking.

I would like a nice nickname…

The motion-activated faucets in the bathroom are not designed for a man holding an infant with one hand. You do what you have to do.

When my wife texted that the recital was over, I handed Ellie off to her assembled fans and faded into the background, which is where I do my best work. By the time dinner wrapped up, we were four hours in and dangerously close to disrupting my pre-sleep routine. The pizza held up its end.

Today is the dissertation defense. I was encouraged to bring Ellie, but it only takes one wrong moment — one well-timed shriek during a committee question — to make that a memorable afternoon for the wrong reasons. She has worked too hard for that. And frankly, I’m not sure the room needs both Ellie and me in it. There may be some older professors present with limited social skills, but they’re not variables I can control.

Phase two of Grandpa Goes to Norman happens from home. Better snack inventory. Bibs within reach. No motion-activated anything. No college students watching me lose a golf ball.

And maybe, if I keep spoiling her at the current rate, she’ll give me a decent nickname.