We have had Grandad staying with us at the moment and the kids are loving it. Big Sis loves having an extra person in the house to “have conversation with”. She takes some information she has heard or overheard and tries it on Grandad with a very informed air.
For example, yesterday she took him outside to the cherry tree and gave him a full rundown of all the information she had on it.
Big Sis : “Grandad, this is our tree, see the little things on it? We can’t eat them yet, because they make us sick. Sometimes they are other colours, and when they do that we will eat them all up!”
Grandad : “Did it have flowers on it?”
Big Sis : “No, not flowers, fruit to eat up!”
Grandad : “It looks like it had flowers recently”
Big Sis, with an exasperated and firm air : “No the flowers are over there (pointing at the flower bed then turning back to the tree) and don’t you eat them up yet Grandad or you will be very very sick!”
She then moved quickly to another area of the garden to showcase Dog’s pooper scooper before there could be anymore unwanted contributions from Grandad about the tree!
The main point of contention today was the fact I was calling Grandad “Dad”. Big Sis objected strongly that he wasn’t “Dad”. I explained that he was in fact my Dad, in the same way DSO is her Dad. She looked skeptical about this, but kept her objections to herself.
For the rest of the day, however, whenever she would talk about DSO she would defiantly refer to him as “My special Daddy”. I think she was concerned that through some adult slight of hand we were threatening to take the relationship away from her and her Daddy. I suppose when you are 3 everything is possible!
But, I just know that the minute she has become comfortable with this new information about cross generational relationships she’ll be looking around for someone to test it out on and telling them all about how Grandad is Mummy’s Dad - in a very authoritarian manner!
Daddy, Flowers
