"Just Get A Toy Out Of The Tote!"

"Shoot!"  I can't find it!

I dropped my white framed glasses.  When I retrived them from under the table where I'd been addressing birthday cards, the left lens was missing.  "Shoot!  Now I'm going to have to get down on my hands and knees like a fat fluffy St. Bernard sniffing and nudging snow."  Near-sighted, I am, you know.

"Can't find it!"  I'll wait until DH, darling hubby, comes home to see if he can see it.  Or when I sweep maybe it'll make a chinking sound.

Nevermind. It came to me.  

I've been babysitting Miss Lilly and Master Jacob.  He's only been walking a few weeks but he's a master.  He goes fast, he goes high, he goes low, and he's strong.  He can push, or pull anything.  "Jacob!  Just get a toy out of the tote!  You don't need to pull the whole tote out into the middle of the floor, baby."

Speaking of strong, well I wasn't, I was speaking of his love of clear crystal, but for now I'll speak of strong.  We've lived here since 1987, that makes it....uh...33 years.  When we bought the house it came with a phone jack almost in every room - bedrooms, den, living room, kitchen, and yes, even the bathroom.  You and I know those white square connectors on the wall are for landline phones.  Yet,  I have to explain.  The younger generation will one day hold it up and say, "Name that tool.  Prizes awarded for best guess."

Anyway, a white phone jack had been screwed into the baseboard, beside my computer desk, since the house's creation in 1973.  It survived 6 boys from birth to wi-fi modem; from wrecking Crash Dummy cars, to coverage from flung Tommy Hilfiger t-shirts. 

Today, 2020, almost 50 years later, death and destruction.  Not only did Master Jacob yank that jack off the wall, he drug it 3 feet into the middle of the family room!  "Stro-ong BOY!"  

Remember that one?  "Stro-ong BOY!"  Strong Boy was an animated character in the cartoon Mighty Heroes in the 60's.  Anyway, I digress.

Master Jacob was walking by with tightly pursed lips.  "Ut-oh!"  I went fishing.  Yep, he had a crystal in his mouth.  One of those tear drop light catchers that dangle from lamps.  Evidently, he'd yanked one from the bedroom lamp.  I never did find the little wire that kept it connected to that lamp.  That's another, "Ut-oh!"

Later, instead of stuffing the newest object in his mouth, he silently toddled up to my knees and handed me a clear cap to a spray bottle.  "Sheesh, where'd you get that, little guy?"  Another mystery.  None of my bottles are missing caps.  

So, what?  What?  Do these things come to him at the snap of a finger like Samantha of Bewitched?

And then it came to me.  I didn't have to meditate, I didn't have to seek the Good Lord, I didn't have to ask DH to get on all fours, my memory wasn't recalling either, it just came to me.

He was bright eyed, he was happy, he was talking jibberish, and he was slobbering.  He pouted his lips, he reached into his mouth, he pulled it out, and he handed it to me.  

He handed it to me as if he was giving me a tortilla chip dripping salsa.  I gladly accepted, slobbers and all, "MY LENS!  Jacob!  Where'd you find it?"

One day he's gonna flex his biceps, fists up, and open his mouth to speak.  With a lisp we'll hear, " 'tho-ong BOY!"