Shopping for His Grandaughter

My FIL is one of Pumpkin's biggest fans. Although he is not in the greatest of health, he has never hesitated to get down with her on the floor to play with dolls, or cars or whatever. She picked him as one of her favourites right from the beginning, and he has been all about her ever since. Now that my MIL is no longer with us, I have made an effort to make sure that he gets his fill of "Pumpkin time" every week. I know that he is still quite depressed about losing my MIL just a couple of months ago, but I see that being around Pumpkin causes him to smile genuinely. He probably appreciates spending time with hubby and I too, but I can accept that our primary function is to be his and Pumpkin's chauffeurs. For the past few weeks, my FIL has been saying that he wanted to take Pumpkin shopping for a summer outfit. We finally did that today, and it was just as sweet of an event as I thought it would be. First we picked out some summer shoes, which Pumpkin enjoyed doing, being the girly-girl that she is. While my FIL paid, I told her to say, "thank-you Zaidy", to which she replied, "tank- you Zwaiby". He was so proud as he turned to the sales clerk and bragged about how he was "Zwaiby", and not "Zaidy". The same scene played itself out when we went into another store to buy a dress. We then went for lunch where Pumpkin was on her absolute best restaurant behaviour, which is starting to become a trend! It took three years to get to a point where we could take her to a restaurant, and now we're adding a new-born to the mix. I guess it'll only be another three years before we can all dine together as a family in fine establishment such as Pizza Hut or something. Anyhow, as per every time I've left a restaurant with my FIL, he suggested getting a frozen yogurt. I left Pumpkin with my FIL and his health-care-worker to go buy yogurt while I checked a nearby store for a pair of Crocs for Pumpkin. Yes, Crocs are ugly, but their all-rubber construction allows them to wash well in the event of a dog-poo mishap, so they are the preferred shoe of my backyard. No luck though - her size seems to be a tough one to find. I came back to find Pumpkin with her own tub of frozen yogurt, and a rather chocolaty face. I think both of them were pleased with this particular outing. Sometimes it doesn't take much to make a toddler and a Zwaiby smile.