A Night with Papa

My father in law is one of the most unusual people I know.  He is probably the most generous person I know, loves his children and his grandchildren, all of whom think he hung the moon.  He is a kid in a candy store, and probably enjoys Disney World more than I do.  He also has absolutely no concept of time, has never sent an email, and has no idea how to use his cell phone.  When we are with him, he is generally the 5^th child in the room.

When Strib was young, he would take him out to the barn, planning on returning around 5:30 or 6:00 for dinner.  Our experience with our children is that if they eat later than 6:00 in the evening, they turn into gremlins and are starving.  You better hide the dog and keep the kids from knawing on the furniture.  But, when Strib was with Papa, they would get lost in the woods for hours, return around 10:00 happy and healthy and without a care in the world.  

Now Win is coming along, and is having some similar experiences with his Papa.  Win recently went to Chattanooga to have some special time with his grandparents. Sometimes Win wakes up in the middle of the night and has a hard time returning to sleep.  It doesn't happen around us too often simply because he knows we will just send him back to bed until he falls back to sleep.  Not Papa.

Win went into their bedroom about 2:00 in the morning and told Papa he was hungry.  Apparently the medium sized pizza he ate was not enough to slake his appetite and get him through the night.  Papa, always being one who can squeeze in a little more food, was game.  The two of them went downstairs, opened up the freezer, and pulled out a half gallon of ice cream.  They then proceeded to make milk shakes, because nothing says "going back to bed" like 18 ounces of chocolate milkshake.  

They managed to make enough noise that they woke up Yaya who came downstairs a little befuddled, and not terribly amused.  She then immediately rolled her eyes, which women in her family tend to do in situations where they are not invited or ultimately wanted, and went back to bed.  I am pretty sure she locked her door so she would not woken up again.  Papa a Win then finished their deep conversations over their milkshakes, and Win went back to bed, satisfied, tired, and full.  Papa, on the other hand, found himself wide awake, and not welcome in his own bedroom.  Yaya came downstairs at a normal time of 7 am and found him asleep in his favorite chair with Foxnews on and the remote next to an empty bowl of popcorn.