Papa

I always figured this would happen one day, but it still caught me off guard that it happened so soon. At 16 months and 2 days, the dink has officially declared his profound adoration for his Papa (pronounced paw-paw). On Friday evening, I met my dad in Covington to pass off the dink for the night so J and I could go out, get a decent night’s sleep, and talk to some Chinese people about renovating our kitchen. I was feeling hesitant about the whole episode, since we haven’t left the little man since our 5-day trip to the Dominican Republic exactly the day after his first birthday. But alas, my worry was for naught.

The dink spotted Papa as soon as I pulled him from his carseat, and he begged to get down. He started whining, and my dad reassured him “She’s not leaving you yet!” but then realized that the purpose of the whine was to be picked up…by Papa. From there, the dink wouldn’t let Papa put him down. Dad had to uninstall my carseat and reinstall it in his truck, all with one hand because the dink was permanently attached to his hip. When the carseat was finally installed, that dink happily let Papa buckle him in and looked at me like “See ya!” as I kissed him bye-bye and they pulled off. It was utterly unbelievable. Two minutes later, I called my mom to tell her about the dink’s newfound obsession with his Papa, but she had already gotten off the phone with the adored Papa himself, who had told her smugly, “Well, I think D likes me!”

I won’t say that it was bittersweet or anything dramatic like that. But it kind of was. Sure, I’ve realized before that the dink really liked his daycare teacher when he learned how to say her name (Kee---lly) and chanted it the whole way home, but this was an attachment that I’ve truly seen with no other (excluding Daddy). The most amazing this about it is that he doesn’t even see Papa that much! Maybe once a month, and always when I’m there as well. It was like he just felt some sort of instinctual connection to this grandfather-figure in his life. It’s like Susan at work always says about kids: “They get it. More than you think.” I guess before long he’ll be peeing outside with Papa on the compost pile.