Thursday, July 01, 2010


Watching two female grandchildren grow seems to be much different than watching two female daughters grow. For one my memory seems to be curiously fuzzy on the details about my daughters. They often remind me of stuff I had no idea about. Hilary (the younger of the two) makes it a point to remind me that I never allowed her to get away with anything and commands me to be much stricter with Rebecca when she uses the computer or watches TV when she visits us. I would argue that since she will soon be 13 she will not want to spend days with old folks. Prohibitions and strictness will just precipitate that in happening sooner.



But it is wonderful that both my granddaughters will be amenable to going for a walk in VanDusen as we did last week. It was there that I took a picture of Rebecca under a tree and the iPhone reacted in a strange way and produced a photograph that makes her complexion look ghostly. On that same day Lauren showed me the wonders of the imagination of a little girl. She made a paper swing for her toy frog and placed it under one of the rhodos. She then hung some other animals and called it her jungle.

In the garden, Rosemary’s cat, Casa has bonded with Lauren and follows her around. While Lauren can barely pick him up, he weighs 18 pounds, she does and Casa does not seem to mind. I caught them napping in the picture here.



When Rosemary found out that Rebecca was going to get a haircut that involved bangs and the straightening of her hair, she was all upset about it. Today I asked Rosemary if she wanted to visit Hilary, Bruce and the kids and have a look. She declined so I went and came back with a slightly fuzzy picture which I took with my iPhone.

As I left Rebecca defiantly told me that when she becomes 18 she will permanently straighten her hair. I can tell Rosemary that she will play no role in any of Rebecca’s decisions, to no avail. Rosemary will keep worrying and fussing.



I will have to get used to Rebecca’s new bangs. After all I cannot play any role in such cosmetic decisions. There are others, far more important, where I feel I can still be a small element of persuasion.