Reminscings on the Evening

My poor father seems to think he has the total appeal of chopped liver to his grandchildren, simply because he sort of fades into whatever background there is when Gramma enters the room.

Nonsense, because he IS loved by all three Fries.  A lot.  But Gramma plays dress up with far more enthusiasm than Boppa does.  And Gramma gives longer horsey rides on her foot.  And Gramma is just...well, she's Gramma.  But he IS loved, and I wish to point out that Boppa is the one who kept Medium Fry safe from the waves at Daytona Beach; Boppa is the one who let Medium Fry decorate his head with Play-doh; Boppa is the one who will help make sand castles; Boppa is the one who pushes Fries in swings.  Boppa is the one who takes them trick-or-treating with Unca D (while Gramma and Auntie J stay home and pass out candy).  And, yes, the Fries have requested specifically to Skype Boppa, not Gramma.  Really, he IS loved.

Honestly, I think that the difference is that Gramma shrieks back in delight.  Boppa is a baritone.  Baritones don't shriek.

Innyhoo.

So, tonight, we're doing our little nightly prayers.  We're at Mom & Dad's.  Medium Fry is choosing the order in which we all announce what we're thankful for and say our little short thankful prayers before we all pray our little memorized prayer together.  When Medium decides it's her turn to say what she's thankful for, she announces that she's thankful for Boppa and that she's glad she loves him even though she forgot to hold his hand.

Medium rambles through a prayer, thanking God for Boppa even though she didn't hold his hand.  When she finished, Dad looked at me and said, "This had better end up in the blog!"

We here at The Parenthood Experiment do aim to please.

Awhile later, the Fries are in bed, and we're debating which of Dad's DVRed programs to watch (I vetoed American Idol in favor of The Mentalist).  We ended up watching The Mentalist, with the occasional notes from the music playing downstairs to help the Fries sleep coming up through the monitor over on the counter.

About halfway through the show, I looked over at Hunny and said, "I think someone's whimpering downstairs."

He listened as Dad fast-forwarded through the commercials.  "Last night I heard that, and went downstairs and it was just one of them groaning in their sleep."

However, the whimpering continued.

"It's Large Fry," he said, "and it's an attention thing.  And I already told her what would happen if I had to come back downstairs."

"You sure?  I think it's Small Fry," I said.

"I'm 90% sure it's Large."

I decided he was probably right.

"Besides, if it was Small, she'd be calling our names."

"Good point," I admitted.  He was right about that.  She'd be screaming a name by now, since her whimpering had gotten no attention.

"Want me to go down and check?" Mom offered.

"No," I replied.  "It's an attention thing."

Mom settled back into the loveseat, but it was obvious she didn't like the idea of one of her precious grandies whimpering and crying.

The whimpering continued, and about five minutes later, as it increased in volume, Hubby got up to investigate.  He grabbed a wooden-spoon enforcer from Mom's utensil cache and went downstairs.

Expecting wailing and gnashing of teeth to be heard both through the monitor AND the closed door to the downstairs, it was surprisingly quiet.  I heard Hubby's voice murmuring.  Then he came back upstairs.

He closed the door and returned the enforcer to its previous location.  "It was Small Fry."

Eyes boggled.

"I think she was humming, not whimpering," he said.  "I asked her what was going on.  She said the music had turned off, so I'm guessing she was humming to make up for it."

We all chuckled.

"So I told her she had to be quiet now, because it was time to go to sleep."