These are not your toys

During my morning cup of coffee...well, okay. I'll confess. I need 2 cups of coffee to get my morning started. They total somewhere between 12-16 ounces, so really it's just a large coffee that I drink split between 2 mugs. Bah. No one cares. Ok, I'm starting over...

During my morning cup of coffee, Lindsay can pretty much play with anything quietly. That hour is sometimes spent moving cat food, one kibble at a time, from the cat's dish to a play bowl from the kitchen using a small plastic spoon. Hey, that's working on her fine motor skills, right? Sometimes it's spent unscrewing the top of her cup - she uses the plastic variety with a straw - and dumping water all over the floor and then mopping it up with a cloth diaper. Usually it's spent taking something apart and because she's 18 17 and a half months old, she can't put whatever it is back together.

This morning, she found that Lauren had left her beads out - the sort of multicolor wooden beads that come in a cute little wooden box with lengths of elastic for stringing. At first Lindsay was taking all the beads out, and then moving them back into the box, one by one, using a plastic spoon. Then I realized that about half the beads were gone.

She was working under my desk, which has dust bunnies bears because I can't remember the last time I swept under there, a power strip that the laptop, printer, and half the living room lamps are plugged into, and my laptop case. There's also a small plastic garbage can.

I figured of the options, she'd probably put all the beads into my laptop case. When I'm at school, I am always finding magnetic farm animals lodged in the bottom (not very good for my hard drive). But alas, no. No beads. No beads were found in the garbage can either.

I picked Lindsay up, discovering she needed a diaper change, tucked her under my arm to head upstairs to change her. At this point, Lindsay opened her mouth to holler "Stinky diaper!" excitedly and a stream of beads came out of her mouth.

I ask you, how did she manage to put all the beads in her mouth without having tell-tale puffed cheeks? Because I was genuinely surprised to see the multicolored confetti of beads spew out as we walked up the stairs.

I think I need more coffee...