Naughty Grandma is doing a bang up job when she watches the kiddies every Wednesday and Thursday morning. She straps them in a stroller and wheels them a couple blocks down to a retirement community to expand their horizons. Visions of sweet little ones crafting God's Eyes and lovingly gifting them to the infirm and lonely brings a lump of choked-up-ness to my throat.
Hooray for soul beauty!
Our spicy munchkin has other plans for these hearing impaired folks. Mom pushes them up to a man who's fishing in the community catch-and-release. "Say hi, sweetie." Terror! Sheer horror! Gnashing, clawing, get-me-outta-here-or-he'll-kill-me-with-his-freeze-ray looks (or so the Naughty Gma says).
The Fish Man makes it worse, poor thing. "Well hi there little fella!" (Talking to her but clearly not noticing the long hair and pink shirt.) Claps three times right in her face. Oh no. Not good. More terror-filled agony. So the elderly gentleman leans closer in. "Whatsa matter?" Even more yelling! "Can I showya howda fish?" By this time any aquatic dweller within five miles has found a hiding spot well beyond diving range.
This charade continues on for a few minutes until the Naughty gives some lame excuse about lunch.
Fast forward to this weekend--our visit with the Great Grandfolks. My Hot Tamale did her best to make her Great Grandfather feel like a two-headed, tarred and feathered leper. At least he didn't realize it was him she was fearing. She sprinted away from him at every sighting shouting, "No? no? no?!?" By the end of two days she barely mustered a bye-bye wave.
What is it with kids and older people? Why do they freak out?!? Maybe it's the way they tend to invade space, or their smell, or the slow way they talk. Maybe kids act the way some of us feel when WE visit with the elderly. My dear HT, we both need some work here. We'll get comfortable around older folks, I promise! After all, we'll be walking in their shoes before we know it!
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