Today a co-worker sent around an adorable video of a young girl being filmed by her mom. The little one was running around the garage pulling out what I believe ended up being about 5 frogs from her hiding place – her underpants. Hey, who needs pockets? As we were all cracking up about it, my father emailed to let me know my “time was coming”.
I have news for him … my time is here and going strong. Maybe not frogs in panties, but our recent events may have inspired even stronger reactions.
Here is the background: my daughter loved to be outside – as most little ones do – this summer. When she was out, we would always let our lab, Summit (see photo due right), out with us to enjoy the sunny days. When outside, Summit’s second order of business (you can guess the first) is to find a tasty twig or branch to chew up. Fascinated, Cora always wanted to grab the “stick crumbs” on the ground. We would always tell her “No honey, yucky! Sticks are yucky! Let mommy have it.” And she would hand it over and go find something else (usually equally as disgusting) to play with.
Because of this little routine, anytime she finds bits of something on the ground or floor (lint, leaves, food, etc) she comes running holding it up for me yelling “Stick! Stick Mommy!” And then we throw it away together. The only problem here is that she can’t quite say the word “stick” … it comes out much like another S-word I really shouldn’t say here. It’s a four-letter word. I’m betting you can work it out. Yeah. Holy stick.
Cute right? Yeah cute and funny around friends and family. But fast forward to this past weekend when we went to the local kiddie photo studio in the mall for her Christmas pictures. As I’m in front paying at the counter, she comes running from the back of the store (where there was a movie area to keep the kiddos entertained), clutching something in her tiny little hand, weaving in and out of other parents, children and employees, yelling … you guessed it: “S—t!! S—T Mommy! S—T!
How do you even begin to explain that. And how do you explain it without looking even more guilty and pathetic as you go? I believe I laughingly mumbled something about “she’s trying to say ‘stick’ I swear!”. I paid in a New York minute, gave Daddy the “you were supposed to be watching her” glare and hightailed it out of there.
We have to go in tonight to pick up the prints. All I can hope is that no one else there this weekend will be doing the same thing. And I can hope they’ve recently vacuumed in there tonight.
