Beech Tree News Network

The Little Things: My granddaughter, Sabria, has become mobile, which means I have become more mobile than I have been in years.  I had forgotten how many things in my house are floor level or two feet above.  I put safety plugs in the electrical outlets and made sure the closures on the cabinets worked properly months ago; but that’s small potatoes for a toddler.  They have bigger, or maybe I should say smaller, fish to fry.

It’s not like I’ve forgotten everything about the challenges of keeping young children safe.  I was one of those crazy, hyper-vigilant moms who worried about everything.  My youngest daughter, Nikki, exacerbated the situation by putting small objects—the likes of which I had no idea how she had gotten hold of—into her mouth.  She used to swallow Natalie’s Barbie shoes and pass them a few days later in her diaper.  Barbie was reduced to wearing many a mismatched set of stilettos, because there was no way I was going in after them.

It still amazes me what Sabria can discover on a simple trip through the living room.  She is ten months old and fearless.  She will stick her hands into places that would make Mike Rowe hesitate.  She can put together a Happy Meal with a few good grabs from beneath the couch cushions.  She has found socks and flashlights that have been missing for years, and she can always find the remote—even when it’s not missing.  

Having her around has inspired me to keep things a bit more organized, and I’ll have to say, she does her part when it comes to cleaning.  She pulls off her socks and dusts the glass shelves on the TV stand then finishes them off with a spit shine, using actual spit.  (Those cautions about not standing on the glass shelves that were included in the unit’s instructions—the ones Garey and I mocked—are finally beginning to make sense.)

Something I did forget about until Sabria got the run of the house is the number of crunchy things that are involved in raising small children.  It seems I’m constantly stepping on Cheerios, Goldfish or Ritz crackers.  When it comes to crunchy, Sabria definitely thinks outside the box.  I got her one of those Gyro Bowls you see advertised on TV.  You know, the ones that show the little kids turning the bowl side-ways and upside down, and the contents never spill out.  I filled Sabria’s full of Cheerios.  She took the Gyro Bowl, placed it directly in front of her on the floor then scooped out the Cheerios by handfuls onto the tile floor, and crawled away.  (I guess they never thought of that.)

Even though it’s challenging to keep my granddaughter from serious injury, I love watching her explore.  She crawls into the cabinet where the pans are stored and clears everything out.  She takes it as a personal affront if anything gets stuck, and she fusses at it and wallows it around until she breaks it free then tosses it out to join its mates on the kitchen floor.  She rummages through the shelves below the changing table, selecting a bottle of saline nasal drops, which she keeps in one hand as she crawls through the dining room where she picks up a straw and a paper plate.  

Ever the efficient one, she carries the plate in the non-nasal drops hand and puts the straw in her mouth, using it as a third appendage.  She crosses back through the kitchen and once again into the living room where her pile of Cheerios is right where she left it, unencumbered by the Gyro Bowl that lies useless under the TV stand.  Another day in the life of little things.