Things wander in our house. Remotes wind up in the freezer. Frogs in the sink. Cat food dishes on the couch. Jeans on top of the piano. Cheerios EVERYWHERE. Entire pop-tarts gone forever. So I find it telling that both my coffee mug and my wine opener were found on the couch-side cat perch this morning.
I don’t really have to question how they got there- I’m responsible for the coffee mug and Stuffie was the last person seen holding the wine opener (she has recently started going into the kitchen drawers and pulling out can openers, wine bottle openers, spatulas, chopsticks and bottlebrushes). I did wonder for a bit about the juxtaposition of these two items, representing my morning and evening beverages of choice. Did Stuffie notice my coffee mug and bring over the wine opener on purpose? Did the coffee mug magically attract the bottle opener by the power of some lonely beverage force field? Was the universe trying to tell me that it’s time to start drinking? If so, I’m game. Noon is totally respectable.
Looking at our house through the eyes of our toddler is, well, eye opening. We never really childproofed, thinking that teaching her what not to touch or play with was better than blocking access to everything in our house. We replaced the glass coffee table with jagged edges with a wooden coffee table (albeit not until LONG after she had learned to walk, suffered one really nice welt and learned to stay away from the corner of the table) and locked the under-the-sink cabinet that contained cleaning supplies and recyclable cat food cans. And… yeah. That was it. So we’ve had some really interesting conversations. “Permanent markers are NOT for arms!” “You never, NEVER use nail scissors on the kitty’s fur!” “You DO NOT climb the big cat post!” “STAY OUT OF THE LIQUOR CABINET!!!!!” I am amazed by her creativity and a wee bit frightened. She’s done normal things, like lodging marbles in her ears, rearranging living room furniture and wearing VHS covers as mittens. But there are stranger things too. Erasers treated like puppies, necklaces repurposed as compasses, measuring spoons spirited away for who knows what purpose, outlet extenders worn as jewelry, Christmas ornaments bitten into like glittery clear apples. Bizarre as each of these things are, none of them would really have been prevented by conventional childproofing. This makes us feel vindicated.