Howard: Toys, New, and Old

The week before Christmas, our fiveyear-old granddaughter was extremely excited when her mother let her call me. Our grandson was calmer about it, as he always is. And the little two-year-old was only excited because she knew her sister was. But there was one other person in the family that was excited for a different reason.

“I’ll be glad when the children have new toys,” my daughter said. “Maybe that way they will leave the utensil drawer alone. I’m so tired of rewashing them every time we get ready to eat.”

I don’t know what it is with utensils, but they seem to fascinate children. Our children were no different. We would come into the kitchen to find forks, spoons, and butter knives spread everywhere. Often in their place in the drawer, we would discover Tinker Toys, Lincoln Logs, or something else the children were playing with previously.

I’m not sure it’s utensils in particular that fascinate them. Children seem drawn to whatever they aren’t supposed to have.

If we told our children that the paper drawer was off limits, that’s exactly what they wanted to play in. If it were a sock drawer we wanted to keep neat, they would imagine the ban on it was because it was fun and immediately imagine all the socks as puppets or pets to play with.

The fact of the matter is, adults are the same way.

The banister outside my office was painted recently. Soon, there were signs that said, “Wet Paint, Do Not Touch,” everywhere. I must admit I felt tempted to touch it, but I didn’t. But students walking back from class to my office with me would inevitably feel it, and when they pulled their finger back to look at it, it was covered with wet paint. They would always say, “Oh, my goodness, it is wet,” as if someone had just put the signs up because they had nothing better to do.

We are not the only creatures that are drawn to things that are offlimits. Almost all are. An example was a story I wrote about hay we couldn’t get our cows to eat.

If we stuck it in their manger, they wouldn’t touch it. But we found if we put it in a fenced corral, leaving the gate so they could knock it down, they would get in and slick up every morsel of hay.

So, Christmas came, and our grandchildren were thrilled with their fantastic new toys. My daughter was pleased not to have to wash the utensils over and over.

“They just play happily in their room now,” she said.

On New Year’s Eve, I called my daughter. We had gotten a new phone for my son-in-law, and I wanted to make sure they were able to get it working.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “We should have told you. The minute the phone store was back open after Christmas, he got the information he needed to get it working.”

Suddenly, there was a clattering noise in the background. She said, “Dad, hang on a minute. I need to check on the children.” A few seconds later, I heard her from the other room say, “Seriously, it hasn’t even been a week yet!”

When she came back on the phone, she said, “Dad, you’re not going to believe what the children are playing with.” Actually, I would, but she went on to tell me they had scattered utensils all over the kitchen. “And I was just getting ready to make dinner,” she said.

I laughed as I thought about a certain little two-year-old girl. Our Christmas tree had no decorations on the lowest three feet.

We had tried to explain to her that the ornaments needed to stay on the tree, which made her want to play with them more.

We tried to put a fence around the tree, but she always found a way over or around it.

Finally, we had to just leave the bottom empty of things a small child could get her hands on.

It’s good to know my grandchildren are normal and that they take after their mother.