So, there I was, standing on a pretty pathway in the middle of Pamplemousses Gardens watching Cj dash away a few meters to give her space to run as fast as her little feet could fly back into our arms with a squeal and a giggle, when some geezer Brit invades my world with a brash and strident, "Are these your grandchildren?"

Okay. So she wasn't brash or strident ... she was actually a bit shy and over-compensatingly friendly ... but I sure felt invaded; invaded, overrun, occupied, pillaged, vanquished and conquered, actually.

I've been hearing about other mothers' experiences since before we brought Sam home, of their encounters with that sack full of nickels that has Grandma stamped all over it swung by strangers with a tactless propensity to point out how old they look and how unlikely it seems that that the children attached to them are fully and completely theirs.

It's not like I've considered myself so youthfully dewy that I was destined to escape the confrontation; no, I know how old I am and how young my kids are and knew it was coming some day. It's just that I wasn't prepared for it THEN or THERE, so it felt like a sneak attack.

All the witty phrases I've read or come up with on my own while contemplating the potential exchange abandoned me completely, and I was left with an empty expression and a feeble, "No, they're ours."

Sheesh!

I was so stunned that I could do little but wander down the path after the kids, leaving Mark to deal with the litany that came after ... the "Are they adopted?", "Where are they from?" quest for more information that could possibly be necessary for a British tourist on holiday in Mauritius to know.

It's been almost a week now, and I'm still processing the conversation that took place on a garden path when I least expected it, and haven't yet decided if I should label it a sneak attack or a reality check.

Following so closely on the heals of the birthday that places me firmly in the closer-to-sixty-than-to-fifty camp, it could be both. I'm looking and feeling my age ... whatever that means ... which seems a pretty darned sneaky turn of events, but I'm still able to forget this for long periods of time; so long, often, that I'm taken up short by my own reflection when it comes at me unexpectedly.

Like a delusional miniature dachshund we loved who was a Rottweiler in his mind, my mental image of myself is perpetually mid-thirties. The tendency proved dangerous to the dog more than once ... stupid little git kept picking fights with huge, mean curs ... but is forgetting (or ignoring) the rings on my tree equally negative, or can I truly be as young as I feel?

If I didn't pass my days in the company of small children, would I escape the public challenge of being granny-like? I suppose there would be less likelihood of someone commenting within my hearing on the fact that I look more like Grandma Walton than Mary Ellen, so I might be able to pull some lamb's wool over my mutton eyes, but I would still be fifty-six.

And as Sam and Cj head into their teen years, with any luck at all I'll have the wonderful opportunity of being sixty-six, however that will look on me. I'll have to start working on a better response by then.

Maybe I can get the kids to answer for me, something like, "No, she's our mom, and she's actually only 35. We've always been active kids, though, and we spent the last 14 years running her ragged ... as you can see."