Rosie, 17 months, approached me today with a cucumber in her ear and the instructions, "Hiiiiiiiii Nanny!" And then she handed it to me so I could talk to Kel's mom.
Luckily, it was a plastic cucumber from the play kitchen, and not a real cucumber from my refrigerator. If it were a real cucumber from the real kitchen, then my life would have taken a truly awful turn: it's never good when babies help themselves to the contents of your large appliances.
I remember one summer day, when all the windows were open. If you can picture it, we live in a house that's about 150 years old, and these old pulley system windows run nearly floor to ceiling. In fact, a 17 month old can easily see out, and neighbors see in. Some might consider that a little too much exposure, but I was grateful when our dear "great aunt"-type neighbor Nancy calmly called over our adjacent yards: "Kelly, I think Ally has a few eggs in your windowsill". Sure enough, that 17 month old baby was making scrambled eggs for us, with real eggs, and she was nowhere near the kitchen. (However, I'm not convinced she didn't get some help opening the fridge from a few bigger brothers.) I was actually kind of impressed that she walked through the whole house before breaking them in the window sill.
I guess it's safe to report not much has changed for me in these 15 years, from my oldest daughter's antics and now to my youngest. Children watch everything you do and innocently make their own attempts to follow along, although I'm quite sure my kids never saw me make eggs in the toyroom or talk in a cucumber. What is different is that I am slightly more calm about these efforts at independence and don't nearly over-react as much as I did in the earlier years (which honestly isn't saying too much).
Maybe I'm more wise, maybe I'm just more numb. What I do know is this: eggs and cucumbers are easy. But, I do draw the line at anything involving a gallon of milk.
Monday, September 28, 2009
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2 comments:
Those eggs must have helped Ally grow to such a beautiful young lady! I can remember too, Merryn opening the frig at 18 mo. and sitting in the veg. bin taking a bite out of every apple in there in about 4 seconds or less.
Amazingly gifted children!!!!
My sister helped her self to the bologna package one day. Instead of taking a slice, like my mom always gave her for snack. She took the whole thing out and took about four bites out of it. Later that day my Dad went to make a sandwich and noticed all the little bite marks through the whole pound of bologna. Looked like we had a mouse problem. All we could do was sit there and laugh. Still do to this day.
~Holly
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