"Hi there, Grandfather"

Oh, I love my child. I especially love the cute, sometimes crazy, things that come out of her mouth. One of my favorites over the past few months is her label for coins -- "piggy banks." "Mommy, can I please have some piggy banks, please." Who can ignore two "pleases" in one sentence? Give the girl some pennies! Which she will then happily plop through the slot of her... "piggy bank."

But then come the slightly more embarrassing comments. I remember when she was quite a bit younger, one morning as we strolled the aisles of the grocery store, she started addressing any woman who looked to be over the age of 50 as "Grandma." I tried to kind of just ignore it and hope no one was offended. Today I did somewhat the same when we were standing in the checkout line and she said to the older woman behind us, "Hi there, Grandfather." And then to the woman who was scanning our groceries as well: "Hi Grandfather." But does she say this to the more appropriate older gentleman who is bagging our groceries? The man who could actually be her grandfather? No. He is "the man with the tattoo." Fitting, yes, because he happened to notice Elsa's fading tattoo of a dolphin on her forearm and then proceeded to show Elsa that he, too, had a tattoo on his arm.

But there was just something to that older woman who was standing behind us at the checkout counter because we met again outside after I had placed the groceries in the trunk. The woman was parked next to us, and Elsa once again (and several times over) said to her: "Hello, Grandfather. How have you been?" Who knows. I do not even know where she is getting the more formal word "grandfather." But thankfully the poor woman just smiled and giggled the softest, kindest little laugh.