Little Helpers

The professor's and my grandson Tek has been working on walking alone for a month.  We expect him to take off across the room solo any day now.  He is only 10 months old but is a very determined little person.  And a very sweet, mellow baby.

When I thought about what we should get him for Christmas, I decided that he needed something to help him reach his goal of walking alone.  A baby carriage or stroller just did not seem like the masculine approach that we needed.  I started searching for a shopping cart that was really sturdy for him.

It arrived several weeks ago in a large box.  One of these days, I knew I would have to open the box and put the cart together.  Finally the other day with less than a week until Christmas, I asked Tek's mother to help me put the shopping cart together.  She is brilliant at lots of things including putting furniture together and writing poetry.

She opened the box, reached in and pulled out a completely assembled cart, "There you go, Mom.  All done."  Neither of us could have been more delighted.

While the box was still sitting in the living room both Turk and Tek came into the room.  Turk spotted the box and immediately went to open it up.  When he looked into the box, he decided to reach in and pull the shopping cart out.  It had been a breeze for his mom, but impossible for a 2 year old boy who was just a bit taller than the box.

Tek's mom thought that we should immediately take the box away, but I suggested that we leave it there for a moment to see if he could solve the problem.  Even though he looked into the box again he could not come up with a solution to getting the toy out.  I wonder when he will be able to solve the problem.  Maybe we should have showed him that if we turned the box on the side, he could pull the cart out of it.  I think that he probably would remember that approach next time he met the problem.  He is a very smart little guy.  However, neither one of us wanted him to start playing with the cart.  He will have lots of time in the future to take it away from his tiny brother.  Sigh.