Back in August, we headed to New Jersey to see family and go on vacation. While we were there my extended family got together to celebrate Gardner's 3rd birthday. At one point during the party Gardner came running over to me and said, "Mommy, Gigi is blowing bubbles!"
"Gigi is blowing bubbles?" I asked. Gigi (short for great grandma) is my grandma. I looked outside to locate Gigi to see what Gardner was talking about. Not that Gigi couldn't have been blowing bubbles, after all there were plenty of kids there, but it just seemed odd. When I looked out the sliding glass door I saw that she was not actually blowing bubbles, but was smoking a cigarette.
I didn't really know what to say to Gardner. "No..." I started then paused, then, "Yes..." then thought again and by the time I was thinking about explaining to Gardner what she was doing he had run off to something else. I was saved for now to explain what she was actually doing.
I had to laugh at his interpretation of seeing smoking for the first time and I realized that this was just one of those experiences that Gardner had not had before. His Papa (my husband's dad) used to smoke, but quit when Gardner was 3 months old after a nearly fatal heart attack. Maybe the next time Gardner sees smoking we will talk about the difference between blowing bubbles and smoking, or just laugh again at his initial interpretation.