The boys and dirt
For as long as I can remember, Silas has always had a major attraction to dirt. Nearly every outdoor photo I have of him (in locations where dirt is plentiful), he has it on his face, covering his hands, under his fingernails, up his pantlegs, between his toes, etc. – unless I wipe it off real quick for the photo, or to eat sometimes…sometimes, or to go out to dinner in a public place afterwards. Where there’s dirt, Silas must play. He must lay down in it to play with his toys with his chin is resting in it. He must scooch around in it such that his shirt slides up to his armpits and his belly is exposed, making it oh so easy for the dirt to creep and puff and slide into every little crevice of skin and clothing. I had always thought that every kid went about their outdoor play like this. Getting dirty was just part of being a kid, right?
And then along comes Ivan.
Ivan. Little, innocent, cute, chubby-faced baby Ivan. THIS BOY takes his love of dirt to a whole new level.
It all started with him discovering he has a little pointer finger. A pointer finger is useful for doing things like picking and poking. So first he started picking and poking at the tiny pebbles and sand grains between the bricks in our courtyard. He would do this for a half hour straight, I swear. Cute. Next, having discovered the usefulness of his thumb in conjunction with the pointer, he started picking up larger pebbles and little rocks. Coordination. Impressive. After that, he decided that it really was way more fun to grab with his whole hand after all versus all that picking, poking and pinching nonsense. So he grabs just about anything he can get his chubby hands near, including and especially DIRT. Oh, and there’s just one small thing I forgot to mention: Unlike Silas at this age, Ivan puts everything, and I mean everything, in his mouth. And he’s fast. Wicked fast.
We are now thus in a bit of a predicament. We’re a climber family who goes climbing outside nearly every other weekend. We climb on boulders, which a lot of times sit upon lots and lots of dirt. And Ivan is now mobile on hands and knees and never at all interested in the toys we bring to the boulders for him to play with. He’s got only one thing on the brain: his true love, dirt.
So Paul and myself, being the resourceful parents that we are (when we’re really really desperate to climb and not wanting to worry about our baby choking on rocks and dirt), have the idea of putting him in his snowsuit that has the little rollover hand-covering-thingy’s so that he can’t grab anything. He’s safe now. “He has no hands” as we like to say. And this idea did actually work….for a little while anyway.
Ivan too appears to possess some resourcefulness of his own, as well as a little desperation. Picture this: Our baby, in his snowsuit, without hands, sprawled out on his belly like a starfish, face down, head down, mouth open, going in for a big luscious mouth full of good ‘ol fashioned Hueco-flavored dirt. Not so cute. Paul and I both see this simultaneously. I yell, Paul lunges, and before he can reach him, Ivan goes in for seconds. Fast, remember?
Meanwhile, Silas is getting a kick out of it all (probably impressed with his little brother’s ingenious technique of successfully getting dirt into his mouth). Ahh, what are we going to do with these boys? Watch ’em like a hawk, that’s what!! Anyone know where can I get a pair of those eyeballs that go on the back of mama’s heads?
posted by arr
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