Brian Rogers Rogers Rabbits www.sunlive.co.nz

It's not often one can travel back in time.

Just like Michael J Fox in the Delorean, time travel is a rare and privileged experience. It takes us back to when we knew how to spell privileged without having to rely on spellcheck to get it right.

Our recent time travel started with some jet travel. Not for us, but for the incoming wave of relatives from the Motherland. The poms arrived. Well some of them. The rest are still to arrive. During the first wave, I think I know how the early Maori must have felt when the first colonists rambled off the Boeing. Or stumbled ashore from the longboat, which is probably more historically accurate.

The first ones weren't the scariest. It was the unknown factor of how many more were to come that must have rattled them the most.

Our poms came via Canada. One daughter with her daughter, aged eight months. A lovely Small English Person named Florence. All arrived safely and happily, except for the stroller, which took a longer stopover in Vancouver and eventually winged its way here a few days later, via a sightseeing tour of Sydney. Thanks, Air Canada!

So apart from Florence not having any wheels, everyone was in good spirits, considering the vagaries of travelling with a very Small English Person.

Technology has rampaged since we were parents just a generation ago. Car seats now lock into things called ISO fix points. Which means there's no more faffing about with belts and buckles.

This means that if your baby is ISO equipped, (ISO, for those of you a bit rusty on your parenting, stands for International Standard Offspring) which all modern babies are, they can be clipped directly into the corresponding ISO appliance or gadget.

Our car had it, so matching the borrowed car seat was easy, and presto! Small English Person was secured with International Standard precision. I bet the Delorean didn't have that.

The connection with time travel kicked in when we were left with the small English grandchild for most of an evening. Until then, all the parenting duties had been well covered by the very capable Mother of the Year, who astounds me with her love and attention for her first born.

The shock set in when I realised we were alone in a house with the Small English Person, plus an extra rowdy dog having a sleepover on the same night, just for good measure. It was starting to look like a bit of a set up. A three ring circus. I thought maybe the family had positioned Candid Camera lenses around the house and we'd end up on America's Funniest Home Videos.

However the dogs were easily catered for, with a couple of bones. But the Small English Person could require a bit more resource – namely a voluptuous breast or two – which by coincidence had left the house at the same time as the Perfect English Mother.

That's when the time travel kicked in. Grandma (known by the very trendy name of GraNZ, meaning Gran from NZ if you hadn't worked it out) and Kiwigramps found themselves transported back to a time when they themselves were parents.

The responsibility. The trust of a small person's life. The curtailment of simple pleasures, with the needs and demands of a tiny new life resting on one's shoulders.

What if she wakes? What if the dogs bark and she starts crying? (The ISO handbook states that Small English Person can go from nought to 180 decibels in 3.3 seconds.) How, if in an emergency, can we make a dash for the drinks cupboard? What if she demands The Breasts? (Kiwigramps has a great set of man boobs but they are definitely not ISO compatible for anything other than emergency flotation.)

Will we remember how to change a nappy? Haven't they invented a remote control for that yet? Apparently not. Some things just don't change. We'll be having a word to the ISO people on that.

But we needn't have worried, because, as Granz and Kiwigramps found out, babies still sleep. We watched in awe, via the wireless baby monitoring digital video system, as our Small English Person slept blissfully unaware of the nervous anguish her Large New Zealand Grandparents were going through.

Ah, technology! It might have ruined a few generations with their obsessive texting and Facebooking disorders, but it's a marvellous thing when applied to grandparents with rusty parenting memories.

The daughter, complete with ISO compatible, fully-integrated refreshment system, arrived back in the nick of time. Potential crisis averted, but an interesting trip back to the future.

The more some things change, the more others stay the same.

Nightime knockings

On the subject of interrupted sleep, this week's yarn, thanks to Wally:

A man is in bed with his wife when there is a rat-a-tat-tat on the door.

He rolls over and looks at his clock, and it's half past three in the morning. 'I'm not getting out of bed at this time,” he thinks, and rolls over. Then, a louder knock follows.

'Aren't you going to answer that?” asks his wife.
So he drags himself out of bed and goes downstairs. He opens the door and there is a man standing at the door. It didn't take the homeowner long to realise the man was drunk.

'Hi there,” slurs the stranger. 'Can you give me a push?”
'No, get lost. It's half past three. I was in bed,” says the man and slams the door. He goes back up to bed and tells his wife what happened and she says, 'Dave, that wasn't very nice of you.

'Remember that night we broke down in the pouring rain on the way to pick the kids up from the babysitter and you had to knock on that man's house to get us started again? What would have happened if he'd told us to get lost?”

'But the guy was drunk,” says the husband.

'It doesn't matter,” says the wife. 'He needs our help and it would be the right thing to help him.”

So the husband gets out of bed again, gets dressed and goes downstairs.

He opens the door, and not being able to see the stranger anywhere he shouts, 'Hey, do you still want a push? 'And he hears a voice cry out, 'Yeah, please.”

So, still being unable to see the stranger he shouts, 'Where are you?”

nd the stranger replies, 'I'm over here, on your swing.”