NOTHING TO BE AFRAID OF

This year - 2018 - has started off very differently than usual.  We are normally the stay-at-home kind of people but out of the ten weeks since New Years Day this year, we have only been home for three of them. 

This would not be outside the box for a lot of our friends and neighbours; Arizona, Texas, and Florida tempt them all south to avoid Old Man Winter here in Canada.  They hide out down there for as long as their health insurance and income tax laws will let them, but that's not our style.  It's not like we don't go find some sunshine for a break from the ice and snow, but for us that's a stay at an all inclusive resort on a beach somewhere - ten days, tops.

I think it boils down to us not being sitting-in-the-sun kind of people.  We can do it for a little while but it just doesn't come naturally.  We need something to do.

So, even though we've been gone 70% of the year so far and two thirds of that was spent in a tropical country and close to endless beaches, it wasn't the destination, it was the company once we got there.  Even the two weeks we spent in Alberta were all to do with the people, not the place.  Our time away has been all about family; all about grandchildren.

While it would be nice to see them more often, I'm not going to pretend that having four of the little darlings living in Australia is all hardship.  We're not fans of the flights there and back, and to make the cost and jetlag worth it the trip requires at least five weeks, but once you get past these things it's all good.

This time we were there on their Christmas/summer holidays so we missed all the sports they are usually involved in, but still the house was busy with lots of friends coming and going, a part time job for the eldest, and trips to the beach to work on their surfing skills.  To keep Grandpa from going crazy there was a home reno project to work on, and we spent a week on an exploration/camping trip.  The day before we headed home the kids lined up for a back-to-school picture: the eldest was beginning her high school years, the twins were headed for their first days at junior high in a new school, and while the little brother wasn't changing schools, that morning was the first time in his life he had ever had to go alone.

Theirs is a busy household with siblings either getting along fine, or not.  You know: normal.  They can be strumming guitars, beating bongo drums and singing one minute (they are quite good at it), but it's not all kum-ba-ya - teenage angst and the corresponding hormones being what they are.  It was great to get to know them better - their strengths and weaknesses, their interests and ambitions.  Until you are there in person you don't realize what a one dimensional picture FaceTime gives you.  My mission was to take as many candid shots of them as possible to replace the years-old photos of them I have hanging on my wall.  These next portraits are going to show who they really are.

We had just enough time to recover from the jetlag from Down Under and then we were off to babysit a couple little guys in Alberta.  Their parents were off to soak up some Mexican sun so Grandma and Grandpa were there to hold down the fort for a week.  Whereas the teenagers' energy might be likened to the movement of a soccer ball - powerful and strategic - these little guys are more like ping pong balls - bouncing off the walls, the noise they make constant, but not really unpleasant.  Luckily their bedtime was an early one - Grandma's and Grandpa's was never far behind.

They are full of wisdom too.  Conversations with them are always enlightening even though they tend to be about dinosaurs and transformers ... and dinosaurs that transform.  It keeps a person on their toes.

During dinner on the night their parents were flying home there were two conversations going on at the table.  The little boys were listing things to be afraid of ... monsters and dinosaurs.  And the adults' stream of thought that had begun with the boys' parents being on an airplane had somehow progressed to who were the appointed guardians for these guys, and all their cousins. 

I can't imagine why this concern had surfaced ...

Meanwhile the little people's danger list went on ... lions, sharks, bears (apparently only the black ones because they always hungry), and snakes.

I gave Grandpa a run down of the arrangements for each family as best as I could remember them.  There are plans made but I know we are "back up" even when we're not 'plan A'.  Together we sat and pondered this midst the regular dinner din.

Just then, out of the blue, the youngest turned to me and asked "And what are you afraid of Grandma?"

There was no way I was going to tell him the first thing popped into my head so I lied and said Grandmas weren't scared of anything.

And then offered up a prayer that all my children lived to a ripe old age.