The Power of Persuasion

It would seem I have completely out of the blue booked flights for Burton and I to go to Meg's Christmas day. It seemed to happen in spite of me. It began with an e-mail announcing deals on flights to several places one of them being Edmonton of course. I realize the all seeing internet knows my attachment to Alberta. Add to that the picture on top of my desk I have been looking at every day. Emma and Paige's faces in their Christmas picture from last year had been working away at my vulnerability. Hearing Paige in the background of almost every phone conversation was also tugging at my heart. She is a cool cucumber when it comes to showing her emotions and she chooses to keep us at a distance unless she can have us up close. Then she is free with her affection and never fails to delight us. She especially has her grandfather wrapped around her little finger. Emma on the other hand blurts her feelings out and several times in the last few weeks has lamented that Monkey and Toad are not coming out for Christmas. So deliberate advertising and deliberate granddaughter manipulation worked together to wear me down. Once I began to entertain the idea then I started working on Grampie. He seemed stoic at first ( about three seconds ) and then I saw his resolve start to crumble. I made my classic pros and cons list and the pro list was considerably longer. The cons list was practical and held strong reasoning mainly regarding money or the lack of it but the pro list involved granddaughters and the fact that being 7 and 5 won't happen again. 'Life is too short' came up. I texted a close friend for advice and got the same arguments back that I'd been having with myself. Burton of course by that time had completely given in to the possibility of seeing the smiles on Emma and Paige's faces and feeling their arms wrap around him in a welcoming hug. Then the phone rang and I heard Emma's voice saying" Mom says you might come for Christmas, Monkey?" I was done with the debate. I pushed 'book flight' and the rest is history. We are going to Meg and Cody's for Christmas!