"I speak "Dog"

I love being a grandfather…. Even more so, I love still being young enough to really enjoy watching my grandkids grow. I took Izzy with me Friday to to meet with a leasing agent at our rental house in Copperas Cove . I explained to her that the house was where her mother grew up. When we went inside, she wanted to se “her mamma’s room,” so I showed her. Then she wanted to see the kitchen. The first thing she asked was, “Where’s the dishwasher?” (That house never had one, but everywhere she’s ever lived in her short 4 year life has had one…) When I told her there was no dishwasher in that house, she just gave me an incredulous look and asked, “Why?”

Just prior to going to the house, we had some time before we had to meet the leasing agent, so we went to a park around the corner. I had told her that I used to bring her mommy to that park all the time when she was a little girl. She was fascinated.

It’s an older park, perhaps constructed in the late 60’s when the neighborhood was established. There are some very old swings that are small horses that can be mounted, with handles coming from the temples, little saddles, and bars for the feet to rest on. There’s also a tall slide that has three humps on the way down, and a standard swingset with four swings. There are good old-fashioned monkey bars and a geometric dome constructed of hexagonal bars to climb. There are also some little horses, complete with handles and footrests, but they are on a base with a large spring holding them up so you can rock back and forth, even side to side. I’m sure none of these older “playscapes” would pass city codes for safety if they were new today, but to a 4 year old, damn, they’re fun.

After running for 25 or so minutes, from the swings, to the slide, to the horses, then the merry-go-round (also complete with horses), the bars, the slide, then back to the swings… she was having a great time on the swings while some neighborhood dogs were barking away at her. She kept yelling at the dogs to be quiet, and she told them several times, when all of a sudden she blurted out, “Wait a minute….I speak dog!…WOOF WOOF WOOF!!!” I was laughing so hard, I forgot about the dogs.