I had an appointment with a doctor yesterday, and as always there was quite a wait. I used to take a book along to keep me occupied, but with little kids in tow a book would just be silly.

Keeping them entertained isn’t always easy, but they go to great measures to keep the rest of the waiting crowd amused; from a child’s perspective any captive audience, even the sick, the weak and the infirm, will do … rather like a Borscht Belt comic in the ‘50s.

Need I say it? My children are adorable. They enjoy attention, like getting laughs and will sometimes perform on cue. Cj does a fair impression of timidity when asked, “Are you shy”, and follows up the routine with applause for herself. Sam knocks socks off with a litany of multi-syllabic dinosaur names and a variety of opinions on about just about everything in sight. They are both smilers and don’t hesitate to engage.

Good thing I live in Seychelles, heh? You got that right!

Life on an island has a number of advantages, but until these little kids came into my life I’d not considered the “island” aspect of it in the same way. Child abduction, like car theft, doesn’t work in a place this small, so doesn’t happen. Of course, if the whole point is damage, there would always be time for that, but there’s no chance of taking off for distant lands, driving over a border or starting all over by pretending what’s not yours is.

The population of Seychelles is about 85,000 -- that’s a small town in the States – so on some level everyone knows everyone else, and the odds of being related to any given person are pretty good. In many ways, living here is like growing up in a 1950s American neighborhood; people watch out for each other and everyone knows who the nuts are … and where they live.

It’s not at all unusual for a waitress to take off with a kid in a restaurant, allowing the parents to eat in peace while the child is fawned over in the kitchen and finger-fed tidbits by adoring staff. Sam often goes into the back rooms of shops with owners who’ve been saving something special just for him.

I can hear the gasps as I type. “Not in a million years!” is reverberating in my head as readers react and parents in other hemispheres grab their kids and hang on for dear life.

Yes, I know that bad things happened to good people in the 50s and that small towns have more than their share of yucky freaks. I also know that life hasn’t always been as scary as it is now is most places, and that growing up with less fear is a good thing.

When I was four, I got lost in Capwell’s Department Store in Oakland, California. I’d been playing amongst the clothes hanging on the racks, and when I emerged, my mom had moved along. I cried. A nice lady took me upstairs, gave me ice cream and announced my piteous situation over the PA. So traumatic was the experience, that the next time Mom shopped at Capwell’s I made a point of losing her.

The world has changed.