Barnabas Monkeypants

(This is part 2 of “Ladies Man Week”, where we highlight each of Henry’s girlfriends. Today is his main squeeze, Vivi.)

As I’ve mentioned before, on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, Henry shares Super-Nanny Silvia with another child, Vivienne, who just turned two. Henry adores Vivienne, Vivi adores Henry, and she barely tolerates me.

Before we get into the Henry/Vivi romance, I’d like to talk a little about her feelings toward me. It’s very complicated, you see. When I come and pick up Henry on those three days, Viv is usually looking out the back window in anticipation. As I walk up the stairs, I can hear her running around, yelling “Raphe, Raphe, Raphe”, and yet when I finally open the door, it’s like I don’t exist.

When I’m there, she’ll play with her dolls. She’ll hug Silvia, hiding behind her legs. She’ll sit on the couch and cover her face with her hands or a pillow. Pretty much anything except for coming over to me and talking. Like a lot of two-year-olds, she’s pretty shy, and I’m okay with that. Eventually, I hope, she’ll come around. (One day, miraculously, she did let me put socks on her feet. The next day, however, it was like I wasn’t even in the room. Go figure.)

Anyway, back to her and Henry. Vivi acts like a doting older sister when he’s around. When they play, she’ll often tell him what to do and where to put things, not unlike Kristen did with her brother and my sister did with me. She also helps out when Henry’s sleeping (she’ll say “Shhhhhh” to Silvia if she thinks things are too loud) and has even crawled around in front of him to make sure he knows exactly how it’s done. And when they get ready to go the park or the beach and  Silvia has to carry the double stroller downstairs first and then run back up and get the kids, Vivi helps out by dutifully standing over Henry and watching him lest he gets up and starts running away. And when Henry and I leave for the day, she’ll always blow kisses in his direction (and occasionally mine).

For Kristen and I, this is really an ideal situation. Vivi is a terrific kid, Henry can’t get enough of her, Silvia’s wonderful, and Vivi’s parents are kind and understanding and as flexible as can be.

It will eventually end — one of us will move or start going to school or move back to Romania — but for now, it’s perfect.

And, best of all for Henry’s sake, Vivi is none the wiser to his other lady friends.

(Photos courtesy of Super-nanny Silvia.)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 at 11:14 am and is filed under Barnabas. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.