Summertime riddle: What is emptier than a house the grandkids just left?

Answer: One to which they never come.

That would be empty: a house with no stuffed animals in the crib or bean-bag chair smack in the middle of the living room or playpen to trip on or fleet of toy trucks scattered around the place or plastic boats in the bathtub. Or sippy cups on the windowsill, stacks of Huggies on the dresser or a lone pacifier in the bed.

That would be empty: a house without the endearing chatter of a 3-year-old and the patter of hands and knees from a 1-year-old crawling across the wood floors yelling “eee-aah”; a house without the banging and clanging, without the crying and sighing.

After three weeks, the house suddenly is so quiet the sound of the ice maker startles me, and I’m conscious of the incessant blasts of the foghorn or eerie cries of crows.

To be honest, there have been times I’ve been in a fog myself from the commotion, so much so that the appearance of a chipmunk nibbling on Nilla Wafer crumbs underneath the highchair didn’t seem completely out of whack.

What with the back door opening and closing more often than even the refrigerator’s, it’s surprising more varmints did not join in the fun.

And fun it has been: watching a boy – wearing a helmet and sporting pads on his scrawny knees and elbows as proudly as a suit of armor – learn to ride a bike; helping him fish for mackerel off the town dock; seeing him bat the ball; skipping rocks with him down at the back shore; picking blueberries together in the lower field or counting starfish at low tide in the harbor.

It wasn’t always necessary to be an eyewitness but a good listener as he excitedly told about putting his head underwater in the pool for the first time or golfing one hole or beating eggs for pancakes or hammering a nail into deck cedar.

More fun too, singing lullabies to a sleepy toddler who wrapped his arms around my neck and twirled my hair with his fingers till he went limp and still. Or catching him at the bottom of a slide, or steering him away from pulling on houseplants or eating spruce cones. Or watching him take four first steps before plopping down on the rug, then clapping to himself in apparent celebration.

Or being there to mop up spilled ice cream or sticky apple juice; or hunting for one tiny sock or rolling the ball back and forth endlessly or being splashed while leaning over a plastic pool.

To buckle two grandsons into car seats and watch them head out the driveway, them waving with one hand and holding peanut butter sandwiches in the other, is not a scene that makes me feel empty at all. To the contrary, I’m so full I could pop.

For most of July, I’ve had sunshine when there was none.