While adults claim to say what they think, most will edit their thoughts one way or another. Not so young children. We recently visited our son and grandchildren in Tasmania. There has been a lot of growing up there since we saw them last year.They were about to leave us one day when our 10yr old grandson called out, "You rock for someone your age Grandad!" A heavily qualified complement but well intended I hoped. Perhaps it was the Nerf Gun battles we had and deep discussions about his design for a motorised go-cart that persuaded him. He told his dad that Grandad was not like other old people who sit in their chair all day looking out the window at birds.

But our 4yr old grand-daughter took a 'tell it like it is' line. Somehow she saw that one of my teeth (all mine by the way) was slightly out of line with the others and said so. I told her my teeth are a lot older than hers and sometimes that happens to some old teeth. She promptly replied. "Don't worry about it Grandad, you'll be dead soon anyway."  I really didn't need reminding of this inevitability. Just as well they are our grandkids. The great thing is they are a wonderful distraction from stuff that plagues me every day.