Toddler Harbat likes to do things the grown-up way. When I brush my teeth, she brushes her teeth. If I drink from the faucet, she climbs up on the stepstool and slurps up water. Her toothbrush needs to sit in the cup just like mine. Being one of the grown-ups, whether it’s sitting at the table with us or getting to use the grown-up toilet, is a privilege. Sometimes I’m tricked into thinking she can do more, just by her undaunted confidence. Often I’m surprised by the things she can do by herself.
Last night I checked on her and found her sleepy sack on the floor by her crib. Let me explain: toddlers thrash around in bed like caged pumas, or at least ours does. Keeping a blanket on her during the night is futile, so my wife invested in a contraption called a Sleepy Sack. It’s basically a miniature sleeping bag with a vest top into which you zip your toddler. They can roll around like they’ve got the DT’s and they won’t get cold. Except when they are so grown up that they can undo the zipper. Back to the story. Next to the sleepy sack was her pull-up diaper. Hmm. She was sleeping in a tight huddle with her pajamas on, having decided at some point to get rid of the diaper and sleepy sack and put her pants back on herself. I don’t try to understand why, I just marvel at the ingenuity of it.
TH gets a grown-up manicure
Writer, architect, father, husband.
Caged Puma indeed. I was wondering what all those banging and rattling noises were.