Hangin' Wid G

My daughter calls my mother G. Isn't that deliciously Gansta for a little white girl?

My mom came down to the house to spend some time with us. She's doing a great job of distracting my daughter from missing her daddy too terribly. My husband is in Las Vegas over the weekend celebrating my brother's bachelor party.

This morning, they set up a bunny village on the coffee table of little resin characters in larger resin houses with egg-shaped cars. They cut forsythia branches from the garden and adorned them with little wooden bunny and chick ornaments.

I watched them play on the chair in the living room for nearly an hour with Mr Potatohead and Mini Potatohead. This game got off to a rocky start. My mom took Mr and started putting him together upside down.

My daughter climbed off my mother's lap and walked over to me.

"Mom?"

"Yep, honey?"

"G isn't following the directions," she reported.

"Maybe you need to tell G how you like to play with the potatoes, and where his face pieces go?"

"All right," she said. Walked over and began describing The Rules.

They played that Mr Potatohead, a construction worker, was a single dad raising his daughter, Tater. Every day, Mr Potatohead (played by mom) dropped Tater (played by my daughter) off at school where she would do lessons with her teacher Mrs Walsh (also played by mom). Mrs Walsh taught Tater addition and subtraction, and told her riddles. Whenever Tater got her lessions correct, she got a star on her hat. Mr Potatohead picked his daughter up every day, at school, and always asked her if she had a good day and noticed her star. Afterwards, they did some activity together like go to the library, or make dinner, depending on what day it was. As the game continued, my daughter offered different details herself...today after school, we're going to soccer practice...tomorrow, we have fish for dinner that we caught out of the lake. It's fascinating that my daughter's stories aren't at all based on her own experiences.

I think they both had fun this weekend, and it was certainly great to see them together.