If you haven’t gathered it by now, Claire is a pretty easy-going girl. She greets everyone she sees, in stores, and restaurants, etc., with a “Hi!” but when it comes to getting really close to her or trying to hold her, it usually only takes her a few minutes to warm up to new people. Different people fall into different categories. If you’re female, and she’s seen you before, there is no hesitation. If you’re female, and she hasn’t seen you before, it takes a few more seconds. If you’re male…all bets are off. If she’s seen you a lot, she will eventually warm-up, but the truth is she’s scared to death of most men.
Because my hubby’s parents visit often, Claire is no longer hesitant of PaPa. She will go right to him, and the warm-up time has gotten shorter and shorter with each visit.
During their visit in June, Granny and PaPa went swimming with us. We have an awesome Rec Center near us that has a myriad of different pools and play areas, all done up in a water-park theme. It’s cheap for residents and seniors and free for kids Claire’s age, so we try to go as often as Momma’s workload will allow.
So, we all pile in the car, and Claire is chatting with PaPa and Granny all the way to the pool. We decide to go into the Family Locker Room, so that we can use the same padlock to lock up our things. PaPa goes into one of the dressing rooms to change into his swim trunks, and totally disappears. The person that came out of the dressing room sounded like him, but looked like this scary old man. Who was this man without glasses? Where is his shirt? Why does he keep following us!? Why is he trying to touch me!? Momma! Momma! Momma!
Claire was scared to death. I tried and tried to convince her that the scary old man was really PaPa without his glasses, but she wouldn’t believe me. She clung to me like a little monkey, her little face buried in my neck. She would only relax when that strange old man swam farther away from us or was taking his turn riding down the water-slide. (They have a really cool, fast, water-slide for kids and adults…the bigger you are the faster you go…and needless to say, it’s a pretty exciting ride. 
In fact, all we could see of PaPa when he came bursting out of the tube was an explosion of water and a flash of gray hair and red swim trunks.)
Neither Granny nor I swim with our glasses on, but Claire didn’t seem to mind that one bit. It was only poor PaPa that had disappeared and been replaced with that strange man. That disguise Superman uses? It would totally work on Claire.
So, we’re there for a couple of hours, and when we get out to the car, PaPa goes around back to put his swim bag in the trunk. I’m buckling Claire into the car seat, and PaPa pokes his head into the back seat. “Hi, Claire!” he says. “Oh, HI, PAPA!” she screamed! And, I could hear her babble something that sounded an awful lot like, “It’s so good to finally see you. It’s too bad you missed out on all the swimming.”
sent to your Email
