Spelunking

We own a bucket-load of binkies, but every once in awhile we realize that they're all gone. Then one of us (always, always me) has to go binky spelunking under Lyla's crib. Deep within the dusty nooks hide all the Nuks.

Last night I found six of them down there. I don't know if she flings them absentmindedly, or if she chucks them angrily in the first fussy moments of a nap, or if she hocks them out of her mouth like loogies.

Eventually you can teach a child to pick up her things. I say this with a degree of awe because we have two dogs who are decidedly incapable of such tricks. It's not like I wish I could make my baby daughter crawl under her crib to retrieve her own binkies, but it fascinates me that there will be a day when we can say to her, "You can't find it? Well, it's in your room somewhere."

Ooh, and chores. She'll be able to perform all sorts of chores around the house. Julie and her sisters experienced wood day when they were younger, which in rural Wisconsin is exactly what it sounds like. We'll have equivalent days, surely, such as mop day and Windex day.

For the foreseeable future, though, I'll cheerfully endure binky spelunking day.