If you've ever dreamed of having your own personal Bathroom Valet, here's a cost-saving tip: invite a toddler into your home. There'll always be someone there to bring you reading material (even if it is "Horton Hears a Who"), hand you squares of tissue (issuing the command to "Wipe!" in case you forget), flush the toilet for you (sometimes five or six times), and sing the ABC song as you wash your hands.
In other news, Cub has had his first ride on the lawn tractor! And his second, and his third, and his fourth, fifth, sixth ... until we ran out of gas, which was a VERY traumatic moment. However, it did teach him an important lesson about the mechanics of the internal combustion engine. ("Need GAS! Need GAS! Need GAS!") It also taught me that he thinks of me as a large, not-too-bright pet. When the tractor initially ran out of gas, he was convinced that I was just too stupid to understand his request to "Ride!" Obviously, I needed to be taken by the hand and shown step-by-step. He showed me where to put my gardening gloves, where to sit, how he should be perched on my knee, where the key is and just how to turn it, pressing the pedal like this. When none of this had the intended effect, he looked at me in complete disgust at my incompetence. I thought this attitude didn't kick in until adolescence.
Pamela
