| Sunny Side Up
with Kathleen Gibson Sept. 24, 2008 Next time we�ll go by camel This Nana�s never doing that again. Rachel�s getting married. Come West, family. So came the summons to the Port Coquitlam nuptials of my beloved niece. And that�s why the Beans�three of them, three and under�and their parents and I found ourselves in the state in which we found ourselves a few months ago. The Preacher, delayed by a funeral, would come later. But even without him and his walker, I could feel people staring as we negotiated the airports. I�d have stared too, if I�d had time: One big man and two look-alike women, lugging two fold-up strollers, two carseats, three tiny blonde kids (one in a third carseat and two straining at leashes), two luggage carts piled high, and various and sundry hand baggage draped over our shoulders like Christmas garlands. All dropping thither and yon, including the children. We moved through the crowds just like the Israelites�without the camel. People parted like the Red Sea when they saw us coming. �Goodness, you�re a gang!� the stewardess said, as we boarded the first plane. �You should see the one we left behind,� I said. �He uses a walker!� Her eyes bulged. As the plane touched down in Calgary, I held Tabatha (still too young for her own seat), took her adorable face in my hands, and said, �Tabatha, look at my eyes.� The tyke looked at me, her eyes a tad glazed. �You�ve been such a good girl. Nana�s so proud of you.� She gazed back with a rather swimmy look, opened her mouth and upchucked, drenching herself and my entire lap. Then she did it again. We were already late for our connecting flight�we had no time to change. Our stench trailing us, we deboarded the plane, dashed through the Calgary airport and made the second just in time. But it came to be that the eldest bean refused to board the second plane, and chose instead to take a tantrum at the threshold of its door. His parents, carrying the hand baggage, the car seats, and Baby Dinah, had gotten ahead of us in line. The last I saw of them was my daughter�s eyes as, hearing her son�s wails, she craned her neck over the shoulder of a fellow passenger. �You�re on your own, Mom,� I read in their helpless depths. Then the plane swallowed her, and I really was on my own. I stooped to deal with Benjamin, but just then Tabatha decided to opt out of the vacation entirely. Wrenching her hand from mine, she put her little body in reverse and headed up the down ramp, darting between the legs of incoming passengers. With Benjamin in full tantrum mode�safely immobile on the floor�I fired after her, caught her, charged back down, scooped up my screaming bean, and carried them both into the plane. God knows why this Nana isn�t doing that again. And this Nana knows why he arranged the Exodus for the days before airplanes. �2008, Kathleen Gibson Respond Home |
 |