On The 3rd Day Of Christmas, My True Love Gave To Me

.....A Visit From The Tree Baby.....

Back in the days before we were married C. and I used to house-sit and take care of other people's kids.

A lot.

I like to think it it had something to do with my highly superior, if somewhat waning, skills obtained as a camp counsellor.

Of course, the real reason people trusted us with their most prized possessions was because C. has real life childcare abilities, not to mention a gift to play the role of the pied piper at the drop of a hat.

The latter gift has never left her, and in the intervening years C. has become an Elvis-like icon for the younger set. In fact, it has gotten to the point where you can't go anywhere with her these days and not be mobbed by little ones.

And because she's been at it for a while now lots of those little ones have since become big ones.

And C. remembers them all, including their names.

And they remember her too.

****

One of those now grown-up kids that C. once mezmorized with tunes like 'Animal Party' and 'Joshua Giraffe' was at our house for dinner last night.

When she was little we used to call this kid 'Tree Baby' because she would climb anything with foilage.

Anyway, T.B. and her slightly older sister have now become the kind of truly interesting, and interested, young women of composure and self-confidence that you hope your own kid might choose to emulate.

And our oldest kid, E., appears to be doing just that.

So, when the formalities and the dinner were over, it was great fun to hear them all down in the basement wailing away on E.'s little karoake machine.

And E., or course, was beaming when the girl formerly known as Tree Baby asked if she could borrow the little machine for her 19th birthday party that is looming just over the horizon.

As for our youngest kid e., well, she lent T.B.'s younger brother her own 'Simon-Says' toy just as they were all going out the door.

Then e. got her pyjama's on and climbed into her lower bed on the bunk.

And then E. climbed up onto the top bunk where she used to sleep when we lived in the old house back before she got her own room.

And then E. told e. a story, made-up right out of her own head.

Imagine that.

And then I played the guitar, and while I am no pied piper I do know three and-a-half serviceable chords or so.

And all was right with the world.

At least for a moment or two.

OK?

.