ONE BROWN SPIDER, ONE BLACK TIRE, ONE CHARCOAL PIG

“Sometimes something can look beautiful just because it’s different in some way from the other things around it. One red petunia in a window box will look very beautiful if all the rest of them are white, and vice-versa.”

- Andy Warhol

Ian was giggling!  And I think of Warhol's quote.  So apropos when it comes to toddlers and their fascination with "because it's different".

Ian was giggling!  What on earth would he be giggling about?  Just able to crawl, in the family room, sun shining on his little baby wisps of light brown hair, he was giggling.  Do you remember baby giggles?  Spontaneous, pure silly, and delightful.

But, what was this child laughing at while crawling on the floor?  So, I leave the kitchen, round the corner, and find he's looking at the laminate flooring.  Still I don't understand.  I go closer.

His little chubby body is leaning on one hand towards a small droplet of water.  With his free hand he pokes a chubby finger at something.  Why, it's a little button-sized spider!  A spider!  It scuttles away and stops at the next droplet, Ian giggles.  I guess the spider's getting drinks.  He pokes his little finger at the spider again, and again the spider scuttles further away to the next droplet.  And my toddler giggles with delight!

***

Master Jacob.  Master Jacob has been added to our family -- Miss Lilly's brother.  And, he too, is now adept at crawling.  He crawls from room to room speedily exploring.  One of his favorite things is the door stop.  It's where he stops.  He gives that spring a flip and it jangles and rattles for long minutes.  Then he gives it another flip.  And it jangles and rattles for more long minutes.  This can go on and on for quite some time.

But today he's exceptionally quiet.  Wondering what's got his attention, I grab my camera 'cause I spy him and see his intensity and concentration.  He's making a Match Box car wheel spin.  

***

Miss Lilly loves to draw.  I'd given her a Scribble Slate, one of those filmy, flimsy cardboard rectangles, with a skinny red plastic drawing stick attached.  Doing quite well, Miss Lilly with her 3 y.o. best ability, was drawing Toothless, a character from How To Train Your Dragon.

From somewhere, she got the idea that I had to draw her a fish.  So, I did that one stroke figure 8 loop, and pencil tipped an eye-dot.  Then I was asked to draw a pig.  I'm NOT an artist.  I can do many things.  Draw free hand, I cannot!  I did the best I could.  I drew a pig.

As Miss Lilly turned the slate over to show me the piggy-drawing instructions, my 3 y.o. granddaughter said of my art,

"That's not a very good pig."

What Am I? (with intended pun)

Twisted and tangled and looped and tied
In a suitcase took an airplane ride.

All the way to Sacramento and back again
Onward to Great Britain caught a tail wind.

Once plugged in, got a sizzling blast;
Circuits were zapped, they didn't last.

Making connections, 3 prongs poled
Lying here to there, receptacle holed.

220 is my normal friend
Devil 110 got me in the end.

Here I lay discarded and grim
Not going home with any of them.

In The Bin, counting fiery ZZZ's,
It was the death of me once over DCs.

(pun intended)

What am I?


Answer, read backwards:  noisnetxe droc

A PRINCESS CAN'T RIDE IN A SPIDERMAN CAR

Where is it?

We started with two, had one, and now, none!

Where is it?  Where's that princess figurine?

There in the toy corner stands the little opened 2 sided pink princess castle, with it's little white chair, and gold dining table but no princesses.

Last I saw Jayden had it, he'd decided he needed a queen and king, especially a king to drive his Spiderman car!

A princess can't ride in a Spiderman car in a ball gown.  Off it came!  Like all boys, "How does it work?" is a driving force inside their little bodies.  Never is this force shut down.  By pinching the hem of the gown it opens up and slides off her head; in his case, "I don't know how it happened", it mysteriously broke into two pieces and by mother had to be retrieved, repaired and reposed.

So, where is it?

A castle MUST have a princess.  I simply must find it.
And find it I did.

She's a contortionist!

With red hair, she looked an orange blob on blue carpet.

She lay almost unrecognizable -- belly down, hands in the air, and feet to ears.

Feet to ears!  Good lands!
This looks like a hit and run!

By the way, (looking left, looking right) where's that Spiderman car?

Dared Germs, "Hi, Puppy!", Licks

I dare a germ to live through 350 degrees!

It wasn't the weather that was hot, it was not.  It was the oven.  Later we'd bake cookies.

We all, complete with baby in stroller, took a walk around the burg, Grandpa, GrwammyPam, Mom, Dad, and 3 year old Miss Lilly.

Miss Lilly's energy and speed ebbed and flowed!  First, we ran like we were given a turbo boost.  Yes, I ran, too!  Slowing, trying to catch my breath before catching up to the crew, I forced myself to walk erect, pretending,  "What?  Me?  Marathon untrained?  Never!"  

This is when I and granddaughter lost horsepower and had to walk a bit, instead of run.    A couple of times when we ran out of gas and had to sit we'd pet a rock or spy the moon, or say "Hi, puppy,", to a neighbor's dainty dog decked in daisies and bows.  All times to sit were Miss Lilly's ideas.  (Surely we didn't do it to just mask a need for sustained and fully infused oxygen.)

Such fun!  

I was glad she was little, a toddler.  Little kids know how to stop and go, rest and run, play exuberantly, and fall asleep half on and half off a chair trying to get to the sink to get a drink!   I know, because Miss Lilly's dad did that.  I could pace myself with a little one in tow, and no one would ever know my need for catch-up breath!

So, Miss Lilly and I next made cookies.  While we were mixing, I asked her mom to pull her hair back.  Why?  Because into the bowl Lilly was putting her WHOLE HEAD!  Yep, she was smelling the dough,  "ummmmmm....", was her exact utterance.

Then when I bent to get the cookie sheets out, I turned around and what did I spy?  Her little pink tongue dipping into the cookie dough, "Lilly!  Stop that!"  

My youngest son was grossed out.  This 20 year old witnessed it.  Said he wasn't eating any.  

"Seriously?  After all the things you did as a child!"  And believe you me, boys do ALL KINDS OF THINGS!  They can be uncaring, dirty little rugrats, and yard apes, their jeans pockets hiding balled-up used bandaids, and dried flat worms.  Of course, I scraped out the small quarter sized area she had licked. 

"Son, it's gonna be 350 degrees in that oven for 8 minutes.  If I left the cookie dough as is, no germs could ever survive!"  

And to tell you the truth, when the first batch came out, I broke one in half and a chocolate chip plopped onto my ring finger, and I was blistered!!!!   Proof!

I dare a germ to come out of a fiery furnace to inflict a disease on him, me, or little Miss Lilly!

It's hot.  And survive in my kitchen?  NOT!

"Go To Sleep, Big Toe!"

Last night it happened again.  Big toe had to go to sleep first.  

You probably need some background.  

En Masse, in uniforms white, we high school girls sat in the courtyard learning questionable songs, other times we marched to dinner through white halls, some times we checked out the fair.   I'd won a scholarship to the Indiana State Fair Girls School, yippee!   It was 300 girls from around the state, housed in a big red brick building, learning what our leaders yearned to teach us.

One thing was a yoga exercise by which to fall asleep.

"Close your eyes, and systematically address every part of your body. Start at your scalp and move toward your toes. Begin by softening your forehead, eyes, face, and jaw. Tensing and then releasing each muscle group to help tight muscles loosen, especially those in the neck and shoulders. Continue giving attention to each area of your body - the arms, the trunk, and the legs - until you reach your toes. Surrender to gravity."

I had forgotten the head to toe.  In my mind, it was toe to head.  

Last night it happened again.

I couldn't sleep.  

Shift positions.

Say prayers.

Smoosh pillow.

Still, no sleep. 

Back to the old tried and true yoga trick.   Addressing my big toe (and here you're supposed to actually send your mind's eye to your toe and "feel" it.  Teacher said address each body part 3 times and relax it.) 

"Go to sleep, big toe.  Big toe, go to sleep.  Go to sleep."

Big toe perked up!  Big toe said "Hi!"  Big toe began greeting me.  He sang "This little piggy went to market" until all the other little piggies joined in and finished the song with a "Wee, wee, wee-ee!"   Oh.  My.  Lands!

That sure didn't work, sheesh.  "Arch, go to sleep.  Go to sleep, Arch.  Go to sleep."  Arch, arched!  First up, then down, like a stretching cat doing the downward dog!

For heaven's sake, "Ankles, go to sleep.  Go to sleep, ankles.  Go to sleep."  Ankles began swaying in unison, left, then right, singing, too, "Wipers on the bus go swish, swish, swish.  Swish, swish, swish.  All through the town."

What is this?  A Musical?

Maybe if I move higher up.  "Navel, go to sleep.  Go to sleep, Navel.  Go to sleep."  You know what Navel did?  Navel held hands with hips and in unison they slid left, they slid right, Navel did the La Cucaracha dance!  And finished with a flamingo castanet accompanied stomp,  "CHA, CHA, CHA!"  Oh no, stop this, no!

"Right Shoulder, go to sleep.  Go to sleep, Right Shoulder.  Go to sleep."  And in the dark of night there rings, "You put your right shoulder in, you put your right shoulder out, you put your right shoulder in, and you shake it all about.  You do the hokey pokey and you turn yourself around, that's what its all about.  Yah!"

That's it.  I'm done. 

When I finally get to my wrists and sleep isn't induced, I give in.  I'm totally done. 

"Wrists, go to sleep.  Go to sleep, Wrists.  Go to sleep."  And what do the wrists do?  The wrists do the Queen's wave.

This Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour is done!

Where's that pillow?  I need to smother something!