Eye glasses and easter bunnies
Last week - exactly a week ago today - I was talking with my Dad, Bobbin's 'Grandpa Jerry', on the phone and he was telling me about how he had just spent 3 hours stuck in a storm in Port Dover. There's actually quite a bit more to that story, but it's not mine to tell :-) Bobbin was hearing only my side of the conversation but it was full of exclamations and she heard me say exciting words like "lightening" and "storm" and so she asked me what we were talking about. I summarized the story for her something like this:
"Well, Grandpa Jerry had to go to Port Dover. Do you remember Port Dover? It's the place that had the beach we went to, where Grandpa Jerry buried his feet in the sand" She nodded and added some detail to the memory, and then I went on "Well, Grandpa Jerry went there yesterday and a storm came in from the lake and it got really really windy and rainy and he was trapped there for a long time until the storm was over".
So today we're driving to the park this morning to have some fun and exercise, and out of the blue Bobbin asks "Mommy, why Grampa Jerry got stuck in the storm and he was trapped?"
The way she was asking I knew she had some mental picture of Grandpa Jerry, standing on the beach in the rain, his feet and legs encased in sand up to his knees making him literally stuck and trapped in on the beach in the storm as lightening flashed overhead, and thunder rumbled, and waves broke over the rocks, and the rain poured down on Grandpa Jerry's drenched head. Because that's what "stuck" and "trapped" means to Bobbin. It means physically not being capable of moving.
I clarified that what I really meant was that Grandpa was forced to sit in his car in Port Dover until the rain and wind stopped so that he could get home safely. He couldn't drive the car because there was so much wind and rain that he couldn't see. Of course, "couldn't see" to Bobbin means physically not being capable of seeing what is in front of you. And so she asked
"Why Grampa Jerry could not see? Was Grampa Jerry wearing his eye glasses?"
She must think we're all a bunch of idiots sometimes, with the mental images that our words create for her. Like Grandpa Jerry going off to the beach and burying his feet in the sand and then being stuck while it rained on him and then not being able to drive home because he lost his glasses. Geez, Grandpa Jerry, what were you thinking? I mean really?
So I explained that Grandpa Jerry was wearing his glasses (it's interesting to note that she remembers that; she hasn't seen him in over a year) but that even with his glasses, there was so much rain fallng that it made it hard for him to see what was in front of him, like when it's really foggy outside and the fog makes it hard to see what's in front of us (we get a lot of fog in the spring).
That seemed to satisfy her but I'm pretty sure that all it did was add a pair of eye glasses to the mental picture of Grandpa Jerry standing in the sand up to his knees, drenched, and stuck waiting for the storm to blow over. But she had moved on and so did I.
Next up was the subject of Newfoundland. Not sure how we got on this topic, but I was telling her how maybe next summer she and Daddy and I should try and take a trip to Newfoundland. Of course she asked where Newfoundland is, and so I explained that "Newfoundland is the Eastern most province of Canada and.." I was about to go into the historic details of Newfoundland and our family connection to it, but she stopped me and said "And that's where the Eastern bunny likes to go and hide eggs for all the kids in Newfoundland! I want to go to Newfoundland!"
So now I have a mental picture in my head of my Uncle Tom, Uncle Jamie, and Uncle Gil standing at the St. John's airport arrival gate dressed up in giant bunny costumes waiting to greet Bobbin as she comes through the door.
Cause they'd do it, too. Y'all have met them. You know they would ;-)