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Blunder to wonder
Well, the County has had its first taste of winter and there’s still over a month to go before it actually is l’hiver. At this time last year we were in Brandon, Manitoba. It snowed the day LOML and I arrived and the warmest it got was about minus 20, during the month of November. It’s hard to believe a year has passed since that trip. Manitoba seems to have only two seasons. Flooding season, after the winter melt, and the dead of winter season.
A whole year ago LOML and I flew to Winter- peg and drove to Brandon to welcome our newest grandchild to our great, big, crazy, mixed-up family. The little fellow, who arrived way too early in August of 2018, was only ten weeks old when we finally had the pleasure of meeting him. He was fighting for every ounce of his eight pounds, but he had lungs to beat-the-band and a firm foothold on his world. Alfie showed all of us what determination is about. This summer Alfie and his parents were posted to Ontario and our family tour to the wintry prairies has now become a leisurely afternoon drive to visit them in Kingston. Personally, I find it hard to believe the little stinker is a toddler now. He gives his parents, and grandparents, a run for their money. Well, the truth is, he toddles a bit and seems to find it more expeditious to do an “army-type” crawl to the next adventure. There isn’t a drawer, door knob, a cabinet door, tuner/receiver or a heating vent in this old house that hasn’t been opened (slammed closed), twiddled, fiddled with or adjusted by him. He’s proven to be a bit of a magician, able to remove his hat, his socks, his mittens and his shoes as quickly as one of us puts them into place. He takes great joy in finishing a meal with a flourish which is, basically, “I’m done with this, therefore it needs to be on the floor or on someone else’s plate.” To heck with newly refinished kitchen floors. The surface around his high chair has a crunchy coating of dried mashed potatoes, oatmeal, apple slices, raspberries and breakfast toast, all highlighted with a treacherous army of Dinky Toys and HotWheels.
Last year, while visiting the Manitoba kids, I figured I was up to writing a book about newborns and how to deal with diaper-disasters, sleepless nights and the witching hours. This year, I’m purely surprised by how resilient the little guy is and wonder if I should start taking oodles of notes, then write a book about the “new-age toddler years”. Ya, ya! LOML and I have been through this before. Ya, ya! We have children of our own. And, yep, we walked the floors and changed diapers and soothed teething babies in the “good old days”. Somehow this child has made it all seem completely different, and so much more logical, than our own experiences 30-plus years ago. Parents don’t raise children the way we did in the days of playpens, spoon feeding, Pablum, babyproofing, weaning too early and mushy carrots. Nope. Not at all. I would say, the new ways are much better than what LOML and I thought was the right way. Doctor Spock, and the infamous/famous Baby and Child Care book I was given in the 1970s, seems like some kind of twisted joke now. Young parents of today are so much better and smarter than we were. Yes, they are!
I may name my book, From the Blunder Years to The Wonder Years: Babies are People, too. Who says you can’t teach an old granny to write about new tricks?
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