Improvement in the Monkey/Great Grampy relationship

I’ve mentioned before that Duhdee’s grandfather lives in the other half of the two-family house we live in.  We’ve lived here for all of Monkey’s life but, for some reason, Monkey is a bit scared of his Great Grampy.  They both want to interact with each other but Monkey is just very uncertain about Great Grampy.

We’ve had some nice interactions, mostly in our house where Monkey feels safest.  Monkey has been adament about not going into Great Grampy’s house though and he tries to avoid direct interaction whenever he can.  Something is changing though and Duhdee and I are trying our best to encourage it.

For example, since our plumbing disaster ruined Great Grampy’s bathroom ceiling Duhdee has been spending a lot of time down there doing repairs.  Monkey has been missing his Duhdee and he’s very drawn to tools so he has twice now ventured, willingly, into Great Grampy’s house to visit with Duhdee and watch him work.  He waves to Great Grampy from a distance and, yesterday, nearly wandered into the living room to join Great Grampy watching TV but he thought better of it.

Another really nice interaction, also yesterday, happened in the basement.  Duhdee was building a new shelving unit for me for starting seeds.  Great Grampy came down to see what we were up to and Monkey waved to him and said “Hi.”  Then he started showing off for him!  He ran around the basement and performed feats of strength.  He tried to push the house off the foundation, he tried to move the dryer, he tried to rip down the cast iron waste pipe…and all the while he was making eye contact with Great Grampy and smiling.  He was also grunting to show how much effort he was putting into his feats of strength.

We’re really encouraged by all of this and I know it’s making Great Grampy very happy as well.