LAFAYETTE, Louisiana — Here’s what I remember most clearly about my son’s birth: Like his older sister, he let out a shriek in the delivery room that was loud, unmistakably Stickney-like yet assuring to his father. The boy had functioning lungs. Good. Check that off.

But unlike his big sister, whom my wife and I had nicknamed “Howling Mad” Stickney in her early days, in honor of a World War II Marine general who made a cameo appearance in my master’s thesis, the boy’s howl lasted only scant seconds.

Then our newbie, placed on a flat surface, eyes skyward, considered the light above him with almost an inquisitive look, as if to ask: “How does that work?” It was a harbinger that he’d be an engineer someday. I just knew it.

Engineering took his small family — son, our pregnant daughter-in-law and our one granddaughter — to Bangkok, Thailand, two years ago for work. It was there Ezra was born, a solid chunk of young humanity with his father’s pensive look and — more often than not — laid-back demeanor.

I thought of that last weekend when my grandson visited our home in Lafayette.

His whirlwind of a sister, Adelaide, now almost 4, swirled out of her car seat into our driveway and headed for her grandparents. Movements by the sturdy Ezra, now almost 2, were more deliberate and his grin came slower but stayed fixed, until he considered this new world around him on the Louisiana coast. There was a cat — that was new — and he gave unsuccessful chase. There was a dog — my son’s, actually — who is residing in our home until my son and his crew come stateside for good. The dog, a Lab, was a source of endless delight for both children.

I thought of this, too, when I greeted my grandchildren: Almost 30 years ago, my wife and I sat in a car at the Tuscaloosa, Alabama library parking lot and watched our two older children, not quite two years apart, run across the lawn toward us.

My wife is not quite two years older than me; my oldest daughter not quite two years older than my son; my granddaughter not quite two years old than my grandson.

That afternoon in Tuscaloosa, my wife said: “Look at them. That’s us.” And it was, at some point in our lives. Comes now the grandchildren, in similar fashion.

My bride believes there’s something about placement in the family line that determines part of that personality. I don’t know enough about it. She was the oldest of seven and a handful for her young mother; her brother, next in the family line, took it all in. He was calmer, reflective (and, by the way, has just retired as an engineer.)

There were our children: one high-energy, extroverted girl followed by a calmer, pensive boy. And now comes Adelaide and Ezra.

The difference: While Adelaide clearly favors her father’s side of the family, the blond Ezra favors his mother’s side in coloring if not wholly in his features. That’s not a bad thing: Her family is handsome.

But by disposition, Ezra seems his father’s child: easy, thoughtful, interesting and, if his father is the indication, will be endless good company.

There’s some perspective gained in years lived. What I could not have known as a boy or a young man I can see unfolding as I wave middle age goodbye.

“Look at them,” my wife said so many years ago. Look at us. Still showered in blessings.

Ken Stickney is editor of The Port Arthur News.