I took the day off from writing yesterday to get an early start on our drive to Tampa’s Glazer Museum. We kept the purpose of the trip a secret with our three-year old granddaughter in tow. We told her it was a surprise, so she was on the edge of her car seat entire two-hour drive that concluded in a driving rainstorm. On one of my previous babysitting performances, we had watched the cartoon show, Daniel Tiger, modeled after Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood. My wife was serendipitously served an ad for the exhibit on her phone, and we thought it would make a great Wednesday family outing, in lieu of our newly initiated “Tourist Thursday” journeys.

Although I thought the exhibit was very weak, she didn’t know any better. There was no video as expected, but she was particularly intrigued with delivering the mail to the various neighborhood homes and stores. In fact, the adjacent displays that offered an opportunity to make your own wooden pizza, shop in a grocery store, or milk the paper mache cows held more interest. I was impressed with an actual Mr. Rogers’ red sweater on exhibit. Daniel puts one on to start every one of his shows, as did Fred in the original. I’m sure there are many other similarities that I will pay more attention to on Friday when I watch her and the show once again. I’m slowly getting sucked into the Grandfather role!

She was tired and upset when we went to leave for the drive home, crying out to a Daniel poster, but slept the whole way home. I have lots of photos of her playing postman, a Johnston family tradition since my Grandfather was an actual Postmaster. We made a mosaic, drove an ambulance, played with boats, and had a Subway lunch. In the end, she proved to be a bit devious, claiming to need to go to the bathroom again, as we were dragging her back to the car. It was nothing more than a clever ruse to regain admission in hopes of reuniting with Daniel Tiger. We weren’t fooled!