Upward Mobility

It’s weird having children at two completely different ends of the mobility spectrum. The twins have zero mobility. I can leave them on the floor while I change Abbie’s diaper, and then get distracted by a ringing phone, burning meal, and exceptionally interesting newspaper article before returning to find them in the exact spot I left them.

Abbie on the other hand has tremendous mobility throughout the house, and it’s improving; everyday I have to push my glass of water a little further back on the counter to keep it out of her reach. This means I have to be vigilant about what she can touch, and what she does with the things she can reach. I have to keep her safe, but more importantly I have to know where she puts things.

I’m bad about organizing things. I tend to leave important items, like medical bills, past-due medical bills, and past-due medical bills threatening physical injury, on the first available horizontal surface. The result is we have a cluttered home, but I have a good memory so at least I know where everything is. At least I did know where everything was before Abbie got into them. Right now I’m missing a few important items thanks to her.

I have no idea where the cats’ food dish is. I know Abbie did something with it, but I’m not sure what. It’s a metal dish that makes an awesome “clang” sound when it collides with our concrete basement floor. That sound is one of the world’s most attractive to her, surpassed only by the sound of the front door closing as mommy comes home, and possibly daddy uttering the word “bath.” She loves throwing it around the basement, as she did a couple days ago while I worked on the computer finding important websites. I tuned out the repetitive clanging for several minutes, and finally turned around to retrieve her seconds after one last “clang.” Suddenly the bowl was gone, and Abbie had an innocent look on her face that said, “What else can I throw?” I assume it slid under one of our many boxes strategically placed around the floor to minimize available walking space, but darned if I can find it. I kept thinking she’d pull it back out one of these days, but no luck yet. Maybe we’ll find it when we move.

Then we have sippy cups. I always give Abbie her sippy cup so she can finish her milk while I clean up after meals, and invariably forget to promptly retrieve the cup. Sometimes I find the cup on the floor within an hour* of pouring it, and encourage her to finish it before loading it in the dishwasher. Sometimes it rolls under the table after breakfast, where it stays until I notice we’re a sippy cup short before starting the dishwasher at night. Sometimes they vanish. Ellie found a disappearing/reappearing cup far under the kitchen table the other day filled with a hardened milk-like substance. I knew we were missing a cup because we have an extra lid, so at first I was overjoyed, but quickly saw the newly discovered cup already had a lid. The next day, Ellie found another cup under our bed, this one without a lid. I was overjoyed to complete our sippy cup collection, but then discovered the colors on the cup and lid didn’t match. So now our collection is complete as long as I don’t mind the mismatched cup and lid set. Maybe we’ll find the missing cup and lid when we move.

* Or two.