Cat Food Reconnaissance

JayJay, my oldest son, was at school and we would need to leave soon to pick him up. I told Max to get his shoes and socks on, several times. When it was time to walk out the door and get in the car, Max still didn't have them on and I was feeling flustered. I gathered up his shoes and socks and approached to put them on him. That's when he announced, "I have to poop."

"Now?" I asked. "Can't you wait until after we pick up JayJay?"

"No," he said, of course. He went upstairs to the bathroom. I waited downstairs and impatiently gave him several minutes to get his business done. When I thought he'd had enough time, I went upstairs to help him clean up. I left my baby, Third, on the living room rug with some toys.

Third is seven months old. He has not figured out how to crawl yet. He gets up on hands and knees and rocks, but to get around he army-crawls. I thought I would be able to get back downstairs to him before he got into too much trouble. But this is a baby who started laughing at farts when he was four months old, so I should have known better.

I was sitting on the stairs with Max, helping him get shoes and socks on when I heard the rattling sound of cat food being spilled from its metal dish in the dining room (I use this term loosely since our house is small and the living room, dining room, and kitchen are basically one room). By the time I reached him, which was only a matter of seconds later, Third had his mouth and two grubby little fists full of cat food. I swept out his mouth and pried open his fat little fingers to make him drop the cat food. When I picked him up, cat food fell out of the long sleeves of his shirt. And I found more in his hands after I thought I had emptied them. He had cat food everywhere! Mission accomplished.

Luckily, he is severely cute.