Baby Sitting.

My daughter has made the decision to go back to work, part-time.

Minding my grandson, D, has been fun, if a little distracting. He was getting very clingy and I think it's healthy for him to spend time away from Mum. He's been no bother really, just needs his mind taken off the fact she's at work. Easy enough, his curiosity knows no bounds.

He's been very interested in the sky of late, prompted by seeing a huge full moon recently, so I thought I'd boggle his little brain just a tad. I asked him, "So what's up above the blue sky then?" His wee face screwed up, confused and he said, "But Nanny, that's it. That's all."

"Really?" I said.

So I trawled about the internet for a while and found a nice bit of CGI that showed the planetary movement in our solar system. Now, obviously, he didn't quite 'get it' so, I asked him what he sees when he looks at the sky. He mentioned the moon, so I used it as a frame of reference for him. I said, "We can see the moon from here but imagine, if we were sitting on the moon looking this way, what we would see?"

He shook his wee head. "Nanny, I dunno."

"Ready for this?" I said and cued my next vid— a satellite image of the Earth from space. He balked, his wee mind trying to get to grips. I pointed to the blue areas and said, "What do you think that is?" He shrugged his shoulders. "What if I was to tell you it's water?" I continued.

He spotted the problem at once. He went and got his football, shook his head and said "But Nanny, the water would fall off."

"Not so, " I said and went on to explain the concept of gravity, which he took to like a duck to water. (He does love that football.)

I pointed to the land masses and showed him a global map. I then referred back to original vid and showed him Earth and told him that's where we live.

He wasn't convinced. Oh, no?

I used satellite imagery and took him on a little trip, explaining that what we were seeing were increasingly magnified photographs. He's watched me zooming and cropping pics so he understands. I zoomed in from space and showed him our planet, our continent, our country, our city. The very last image was that of his own front door. The expression on his face was priceless.

Suffice to say he's now changed his mind about what he wants to do when he's grown up. He's decided there's not much point being a dinosaur hunter as they are extinct. (I've explained extinction already, so that he understood there was ABSOLUTELY no chance of running into a T Rex when playing footie in the park. ) He now thinks being an astronaut is a much better career option. NASA here he comes!

I love being a gran.