She is our only grandchild. When she was an infant we used to push her in a stroller or carry her in a backpack wherever we went. When she learned to walk, she would toddle alongside us, and daily expeditions to area parks would become a part of her experience of the wider world. She was a stubborn little girl, refusing to share her toys with other children, though we urged her to. Today, at age 17, she is loathe to share what she considers most precious to her with others because they don't, for the most part, share her abhorrence of marking up pages in books; she treasures her books and insists they be kept in immaculate condition.

When she was finally toilet trained we thought about giving her the experience to be had at pre-school, and so enrolled her at a nearby pre-school co-operative, where my husband and I both also volunteered. She has always been a social little girl, and now that she is on the cusp of true adulthood she remains so, with a wide circle of friends. She would rather buy a book for a friend than loan out one of her own; that characteristic remains to this day.

We walked her to the school-bus stop at the foot of our street each morning of the workday when she was in our care, and in the afternoon walked down to the stop to greet her as she stepped off the bus. As she grew older, she would invite the occasional friend over to play with her after school, but she also found some neighbourhood friends of a more casual nature.

When she was nine years old her mother moved quite a distance from us making it impractical for this childcare relationship to continue, and our granddaughter began attending school in a rural community, bused from her home to a school twenty minutes' distance. Now in her last year of high school and awaiting the full results of her applications to four universities, she is anxious to get on with her academic life, preparatory to taking her place in the world as a working professional.

She still calls every day for a long chat. Usually that call comes in when she's arrived home from school. Our conversation today revolved around the absolutely atrocious weather; high winds, snow and white-out conditions to accompany the deep chill of temperatures falling well below normal for this time of year. She recounts to me her day's adventures, as it were.

Today's was complete with the description of the three-and-a-half-hour-long law exam she wrote, resulting in a very stiff wrist, since she had written seven fulscap pages in response to the examination questions. What's next is studying for her history exam to take place on Wednesday, and that will mark the end to this semester of Grade 12, and introduce the following semester.