Today I caught Archer playing with his marbles at Fable's feet as
she grasped for them with her chubby little hands. In .05 seconds I
leapt on Archer, tackling him to the ground.
"I told you not to play with your marbles anywhere even close to Fable's vicinity!"
"Because Fable could choke on the marbles and die, right Mommy?"
"Um... What?"
"Because Fable could swallow a marble and it would choke and die and then it wouldn't be very nice at all."
"Um... Yes? Yes. So... Please don't do that anymore."
"Yeah. Because it's NOT NICE!"
Archer
spent the rest of the afternoon playing marbles on the other side of
the living room as Fable kicked her little legs against her bouncy
seat. But it got me thinking, wondering what I'm going to do when Fable
is old enough to crawl. I never childproofed the house when Archer was
a baby because I didn't really need to. Because he didn't really care
to try to get into anything and plus, nothing of mine was really of
interest. Nothing besides my shoes and tampons (great toy, very useful)
and it wasn't like he was going to choke on those. Fable on the other
hand is a second child and second children, I'm finding, want nothing
more than to get all up in their big brothers' bidnis.
Hooray
for Archer's stuff! And while we're at it, hooray for tea parties! And
leg warmers! And cute headbands and flowers and wonderfulness!
"At
some point you're probably going to have to take away Archer's
marbles," my mom said to me months ago, during a mother/daughter marble
shopping-spree. (It's amazing how HARD it is to find marbles these days
and how easy it is to find dolls that talk. So backwards and lame.)
"Yeah. I'll just take them away when she's crawling and stuff," I agreed and left it at that.
Taking
away Archer's marbles seemed like a perfectly logical, obvious
sollution until Archer's marbles became his greatest love and now I'm
fucked. Because how the hell can I take away my darling son's greatest
love? I mean... I can't. Can I...?
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