I'm not totally sure what brought me back here today.  It may be that a couple friends asked recently if I was still writing, it might be the fact that we're days away from W5kfC and that's always an emotional time (both good and bad), it might be that I've had so many changes over the last year.  I suspect it's some combination of the three, but I guess the reason isn't relevant.  I'm here and you'll all pay for it...

I decided to take a few moments and welcome the Beatle Baby to the planet.  grandchild number 4 arrived about 8 months ago and he's an absolute joy.  Cute as a button, great personality, almost always happy.  I'm glad his father doesn't visit here because he reminds me SO much of the Boy Child when he was little.  Very mellow baby, almost always in a good mood.  Unlike the Oldest One, sorry OO but it's true.

But I digress...

Grandparenthood is so vastly different from parenting.   Maybe it's because we've gotten wiser as a population and we worry about so many more things, I don't know.  When mine were little we didn't really worry too much about things like oh, say, car seats, or not eating junk food (organics were for hippies back then for cryin out loud) or second-hand smoke (what? it's not like we blew it in their faces).  The Pirate and I went to a concert last night in our town.  A free, open to the public, weekly event in the park on the beach.  And I noticed the number of little kids, some looked to be no more than 4 or 5, running around with no supervising adults anywhere near them.  Granted it's a gated park, in a reasonably affluent area, but haven't these people heard of Jerry Sandusky?  The whole evening just made me kind of shake my head.  Of course, back in the day, I probably was much the same with my kids, but Geez Louise, I'd NEVER let one of the grandkids run around like that.  Heck I still keep a close eye on the Heir to the Throne and he's almost 12.  As the twitterverse says, smh... smh.

It's killing me, btw, to not put up a picture of Beatle Baby, but that's out of the question in this day and age.  So if you know me in RL, you'll just have to come out (***shameless plug alert, shameless plug alert***) Saturday for the 9th annual Walk 5k for Caitlin and see all of us for yourself.  And while you're there, take a look at what we're trying to accomplish.  We've all been through some pain the last 9 (sometimes it feels like yesterday) years and one of the things we try to do is prevent someone else from joining our ranks.

If you've never been to this site or our event before try here or this one and see what the day is about.  In 2 days the Blond Child would've been 27.  Married?  Maybe.  Kids? Who knows.  She never got the chance.

She should have.  Everyone should.  Don't drink and drive.  Ever.  It's that simple.