Toddlers and Toilets

Baby Trey is now Toddler Trey. Or, alternatively, Barely-One-Year-Old-Bumbling-Around-the-House-on-Adorably-Wobbly-Legs Trey.

I admit that, with a four-year gap between Trey and Mari, I had gotten out of the habit of the constant vigilance that toddlers require lest they upturn every drawer and basket in your home. Mari was also the sort of baby who preferred to stick by her caregiver's side, so she conveniently kept herself within eyesight. Trey considers the world his oyster. Now that he is completely mobile and very, very curious, I'm once again going through that process of trying to eliminate temptation and danger by looking around the house with the eyes of a toddler. Eyes which see trash cans as toy baskets and toilets as convenient indoor water tables.

For example, behold a list of things Trey put into the toilet just yesterday:

• diapers, used (two)
• toilet paper
• items from bathroom waste bin, assorted
• package of wipes
• his shoe, orange
• his comb
• a pencil
• my hairbrush
• my toothbrush
• his hand, right
• my sanity

Good thing the little bugger is so delightfully cute.

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Children's Books About Civil Rights Movement

Eddie came home from school the other week parroting the usual first-grade story that Martin Luther King, Jr. single-handedly got a bunch of unfair laws changed by making one great speech. Granted, he was working off a lesson in his second language (it's a bilingual program), but still. We jumped back into our ongoing conversations about the decades of work by countless individuals that made up the modern civil rights movement, not to mention the centuries of activism and resistance prior to that. Such a big, big topic.

I asked whipsmart internet friend Shannon (via Twitter) if she had any recommendations for quality picture books that we could use to augment our discussions with the kids, because I've been pretty underwhelmed with what I've found so far. And did she ever! I know some of you will also be interested, so I wanted to share her list of children's books about the civil rights movement. Thanks, Shannon!

Three Beautiful Things #25

Three beautiful things on a wintery weekend day:

1. Silence behind the door of the room in which the napping baby lies
   
   
2. Whipped cream
   
   
3. Driving over a bridge by my home one morning, the fog was so thick it swallowed the river, the banks, the horizon. Suddenly I was driving through clouds miles above the earth.

What is beautiful in your world today?