Ms. Crabapple
Abbie developed an odd behavior last night. I was giving her a bath last night and almost as soon as she hit the water, she dropped to all fours and started dunking her face in the water. I have no idea what she was trying to accomplish. Perhaps she was thirsty and, tired of sippy cup water, decided to give bathtub water a try, discovered she liked its smooth lathered taste, and kept returning for more. She could have also discovered that bathtub tastes icky, but, desperate for some sort of nourishment, she hoped that maybe the next time would be different, and kept returning over and over only to be disappointed every time. This behavior is often exhibited in Cub fans, so she could have easily learned it from me.
Maybe she was trying to frighten me. I have to admit that the sight of my daughter face down in the tub for seconds at a time disturbs me as much as any Michael Moore documentary, especially when she pokes her head back up occasionally coughing up the water that entered her airways. Then I see she’s okay and completely in control of her actions, so I conclude she must know what she’s doing. Then she drops face first back into the water.
If she wants to frighten me, I can only conclude that she’s trying to exact revenge on me. There’s only one action that I’ve taken recently that’s so heinous it would justify her trying to scare the bejeebers out of me: All those times I’ve knocked something out of her hands as she tries to put it in her mouth. She’s always tried to chew on objects not normally associated with human consumption, like rocks, woodchips, and dog food, which I’ve already chronicled in nauseating detail on this blog. Now she’s found a new source of sustenance, a source that, unlike her choices for chewing, is actually occasionally eaten by people: Crabapples.
We have a crabapple tree in our backyard, and with this crabapple tree is doing what crabapple trees do best when the sun sets sooner and the temperatures begin to nip in the morning: It’s pouring out massive quantities of allergens that are driving me crazy and forcing me to decide if I want to take allergy medication that will make me slightly less congested and slightly more tired.* The tree is also dropping crabapples, and it’s dropping them very slowly. I wish it would just drop its load all at once, covering the ground with hundreds of crabapples overnight. That way I would only have to watch Abbie carefully for about a week before nature, and the neighbor children’s feet, could work them all down to rotten mulch.
Instead the tree drops a few here and a few there, ensuring a constant supply of shiny red fruit ready to attract Abbie so that she may consume it and deposit its seed, allowing the tree’s lineage to prosper throughout the land. Of course the seed ends up deposited in a diaper, which is in turn deposited in a diaper pail, which is in turn deposited in the landfill until both trash bag and diaper biodegrade some 144,082,742,789 years from now, but nobody ever accused a crabapple tree of being smart.
The fruit certainly does its job attracting Abbie. Many times, exasperated after repeatedly knocking rocks out of her hand as the enter her mouth, I’ll move her away from the rock bed and into the middle of the yard. She wanders for a few minutes disappointed by the sudden lack of rocks, until she notices the pretty scarlet fruit lying in the grass. She picks it up and examines it, which I allow her to do because it encourages an inquisitive mind, and I’m not one of those guys who’s opposed to girls learning about science. Then the cherry goes in her mouth, and that’s when I knock it away. Theoretically, eating a crabapple should be harmless, but it has been on the ground picking up potentially dangerous germs, plus some crabapples are poisonous. Aren’t they?
We continue this act for a few more rounds, with her occasionally succeeding in inserting the fruit into her mouth. That’s when I pick her up and carry her back inside so she can return to safe activities, like trying to eat her toys. She protests the whole way, and unable to affect me at the moment, she exacts her revenge in the bathtub by pantomiming drowning. I can’t wait until she's old enough to just tell me that I’ve ruined her life.
* The box says non-drowsy. That stuff is about as non-drowsy as the Bo Bice-less American Idol tour that just rolled through town.
Maybe she was trying to frighten me. I have to admit that the sight of my daughter face down in the tub for seconds at a time disturbs me as much as any Michael Moore documentary, especially when she pokes her head back up occasionally coughing up the water that entered her airways. Then I see she’s okay and completely in control of her actions, so I conclude she must know what she’s doing. Then she drops face first back into the water.
If she wants to frighten me, I can only conclude that she’s trying to exact revenge on me. There’s only one action that I’ve taken recently that’s so heinous it would justify her trying to scare the bejeebers out of me: All those times I’ve knocked something out of her hands as she tries to put it in her mouth. She’s always tried to chew on objects not normally associated with human consumption, like rocks, woodchips, and dog food, which I’ve already chronicled in nauseating detail on this blog. Now she’s found a new source of sustenance, a source that, unlike her choices for chewing, is actually occasionally eaten by people: Crabapples.
We have a crabapple tree in our backyard, and with this crabapple tree is doing what crabapple trees do best when the sun sets sooner and the temperatures begin to nip in the morning: It’s pouring out massive quantities of allergens that are driving me crazy and forcing me to decide if I want to take allergy medication that will make me slightly less congested and slightly more tired.* The tree is also dropping crabapples, and it’s dropping them very slowly. I wish it would just drop its load all at once, covering the ground with hundreds of crabapples overnight. That way I would only have to watch Abbie carefully for about a week before nature, and the neighbor children’s feet, could work them all down to rotten mulch.
Instead the tree drops a few here and a few there, ensuring a constant supply of shiny red fruit ready to attract Abbie so that she may consume it and deposit its seed, allowing the tree’s lineage to prosper throughout the land. Of course the seed ends up deposited in a diaper, which is in turn deposited in a diaper pail, which is in turn deposited in the landfill until both trash bag and diaper biodegrade some 144,082,742,789 years from now, but nobody ever accused a crabapple tree of being smart.
The fruit certainly does its job attracting Abbie. Many times, exasperated after repeatedly knocking rocks out of her hand as the enter her mouth, I’ll move her away from the rock bed and into the middle of the yard. She wanders for a few minutes disappointed by the sudden lack of rocks, until she notices the pretty scarlet fruit lying in the grass. She picks it up and examines it, which I allow her to do because it encourages an inquisitive mind, and I’m not one of those guys who’s opposed to girls learning about science. Then the cherry goes in her mouth, and that’s when I knock it away. Theoretically, eating a crabapple should be harmless, but it has been on the ground picking up potentially dangerous germs, plus some crabapples are poisonous. Aren’t they?
We continue this act for a few more rounds, with her occasionally succeeding in inserting the fruit into her mouth. That’s when I pick her up and carry her back inside so she can return to safe activities, like trying to eat her toys. She protests the whole way, and unable to affect me at the moment, she exacts her revenge in the bathtub by pantomiming drowning. I can’t wait until she's old enough to just tell me that I’ve ruined her life.
* The box says non-drowsy. That stuff is about as non-drowsy as the Bo Bice-less American Idol tour that just rolled through town.
posted by Matt at
9:30 PM
2 Comments:
Love your reference to Bo Bice here!
By
Anonymous, at 5:06 PM
I guess I know how to increase traffic to my blog: Drop a Bo Bice reference, Carrie Underwood. Does that get anyone's attention?
By
Matt, at 9:40 PM
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