Stuff of Childhood

I think perhaps there are few things as fun and rewarding as watching your child begin to get the hang of walking and balancing. And once they get it, it's amazing to see how their skill and confidence grow daily and exponentially! Molly has been experimenting with the concept of walking for a few weeks now, but was obviously not truly committed to the process. The army crawl was her proven modus motatus, and why ruin a good thing? However, this past Monday someone flipped a switch in her and she decided that this biped stuff was the thing of the future and she'd better get on the wagon or get left in the dust. There's no going back.




But kids and dirt! One somehow does not feel the same warm fuzzy feeling of parental pride and joy as they watch their child shove fistfuls of dirt into an already-dirt-caked oral cavity as though it were mother's homemade mulberry pie. (Have I told you about that pie...?) But whereas one may leap to the rescue of their first child and frantically rinse the germ-laden soil from the mouth of The Baby(!), things tend to be somewhat different with subsequent siblings. In fact, there have been documented cases of parents with ... say, four children (or thereabouts) ... who actually videotape their fourth child (or so) while they consume a section of the back yard, then merely rinse all four teeth off with an extra swig of apple juice from the sippy cup. I suppose it must all come down to one's perspective on things.