By Mary

Gabe and Aurora’s kids have a very special place in my heart. Their typical presence in my life didn’t go unnoticed while I was away. As an aunt (or Aunty Mare Mare as they like to call me), I feel it’s my obligation to spoil them with dotting aunt abandon. On Saturday I babysat while their mom was away shopping with family.

Eventually Clare, Adeline and Thaddeus piled into my car to drive to the tiny gas station  in Ontario for ice cream cones. Afterwards I then took them to a local park so that they could scream and rush about on the playground equipment with reckless glee. All the while ice cream trickled off their hands and chin while they mastered the monkey bars, swings and merry-go-round with one hand cupping their sugar laden afternoon snack.

Before we left the house though, they implored me to let them take pictures. One of them dashed out to my car to retrieve my camera and before I knew it, I had three kids all under the age of 8 trying their luck as young photographers. Some shots worked out better than others.

And some well-wern’t so great.

My 7 year old niece, Clare tried her luck as an artistic photographer after she informed me that she now likes to listen to opera music before bed, and sigh-“it’s sooo tragic.” Ah, the the wisdom of a first grader!

Clare wasn’t the only one informing me of things. Thaddeus who is three, told me two separate stories about ” the one time when he was a little kid”. Obviously that was so long ago.

Though there are many new photos that my nieces and nephew took this past weekend, featuring the likes of a crooked view of the dinosaur on Thad’s shirt and 3/4 view of my neck, I’ll abstain from uploading them. And now if you’ll excuse me, I think I just might listen to some ever so tragic opera music.