I Cringe Everytime You Do That

For the last year, I've been taking Lauren to Gymboree on Wednesday afternoons for open gym. She absolutely loves running around, climbing, jumping, and playing with the other kids. It's definitely one of my favorite times of the week with her.

Well, until lately. See, for about the last three months there's this dad who's been coming with his little boy and, in the last few weeks, their brand new baby. For whatever reason, Lauren is really attached to this dad. Really, really attached. As in, she calls him "Daddy." "Daddy, watch me!" "Daddy, over here!" "Daddy, come on!" And I die a little inside every time she does it. It's so freaking embarrassing, like when you have a person over that hates cats and your cat senses this and will not get off their lap.

Luckily, this dad is just the sweetest man and takes it all in stride. He interacts with her just enough to satisfy whatever attachment she has to him without really encouraging it, which is great. His wife comes occasionally and thinks it's really funny and his son doesn't seem to mind. Now if only I could get her to stop doing it, life would be perfect.


Funny, totally unrelated memory time. I figured since Lauren is 2 1/2 now, I'd better take a little time in each posting to relate something cute/funny/sweet from the past so I have it written somewhere, before it dissolves into the recesses of my brain.

Today's memory is from this summer, when we were visiting my dad, stepmom, and two sisters at their home in Charlotte. I had really worked with Lauren before the trip on the names of everyone and kept reinforcing that with practice throughout the week. For whatever reason, once we got there, she couldn't remember my sister Rachel's name, calling her "Suzie" or nothing at all. On the last night we were visiting my sister Claire at the drugstore where she worked. Rachel was carrying Lauren around on her back. As we all stood together, my dad asked everyone's name while pointing at each of us. "Name: Papa." "Name: Daddy." "Name: Mommy." "Name: Claire." "Name: Crocodile." What?!?! We all burst out laughing at Rachel's new name. How weird was that, right?

Then one of us realized that when Dad had pointed to her, he had pointed to an ad on the back of her shirt for Crocs shoes, so of course Lauren had said "Crocodile!" So of course after that, Rachel has a new name. Since then, though, Lauren has learned her name just fine and has said it often, leaving off all references to large reptiles.