The two year old wins in popularity votes

I have lived in the metro Atlanta area for 14 years, Bill has lived here for 20. Yet, when we go out on weekends, we rarely see people we know. Reagan, on the other hand, seems to know half of metro Atlanta.

Starting when Reagan was about six months old, I used to get this awkward scenario where I would hear, "Reagan?" and some complete stranger headed my way. I would think, Reagan is six months old. Who could Reagan possibly know? Who is Reagan talking to behind my back already? It started out as Gymboree parents and when we moved Reagan into daycare at seven months then it was teachers from other classrooms and parents of kids from all over the school. All of these people knew my daughter, recognized her in public, but had no idea who Bill or I were.

Some people really were strangers, but remembered a chance meeting with Reagan. There were multiple times when, say I had Reagan at Target one weekend and some random lady came up to talk to her and then the following weekend Bill would have her at Home Depot and that same lady would recognize Reagan. Even while with different parents, she knew that was Reagan and start talking to her. Or I would get the, "Hey! I just saw your baby when I was over at the mall." Yes, and I was there pushing her in the stroller. But I guess you didn't see me. I had my darn invisibility cloak on again. Sorry about that, it seems to be stuck on a lot these days.

It turns out, Reagan was the official non-official school greeter at the daycare. Her classroom was the first one in the school and she would stand at the door at the window and pose in her outfit of the day and wave at everyone that came by and give them big smiles and sign to them in sign language. When we moved her to her current daycare at one year old, she was so popular she became an official tour stop for perspective parents. Reagan would always come up and greet people with a hi and talk to them in signs and always had a huge mischievous grin on her face. So people got to know her, whether they had any kids in her class or not.

Reagan is now 27 months old and we still never seem to go an entire weekend without someone recognizing her. Bill and I still stand there stupidly as they talk to our two year old and only five minutes into the conversation does it occur to them that Reagan probably didn't drive herself to Target and look up at us and introduce themselves. This has now recently started with Bailey too. Oh, brother.

In other popularity news, my next door neighbor informed us that Alton Brown shops at our neighborhood grocery store and says she's seen him in there a few times. We are huge Alton Brown fans, and would love a chance run in with him one day! Based on the above, no one would notice if I was actually living in the grocery store. But I'm pretty sure people would notice if I tried to do a stakeout toting my two kids. They would give me up within hours. They know people. So for now, I guess I'm just going to have to depend on chance luck for a run in with Alton Brown. Or maybe I should just ask Reagan to hook us up, she probably already knows him.