Forever Young: One Man's Trash, Another Man's Treasure

Right now Coralyn is fascinated with putting things in the trash. She will find little pieces of dirt or whatnot on the floor (even though I vacuum and sweep, all the time it seems) and take them to the trashcan, push the button to open the lid, deposit her "treasure" and then proudly come let me know about her good deed, repeatedly say, "Trash, trash, trash."

I like that she is a good helper and knows to put things in the trash, although at times I wish she wasn't so good at finding the dirt on the floor. Once she finds something, there is no ignoring it. She is insistent on taking the item, no matter how small, to the trashcan, immediately.

Yesterday, since it was so nice, I let Coralyn go barefoot in the house. Plus, the kitchen floor was extra slick, or so it seemed, and she had fallen twice in her socks. I thought it would be easier to go barefoot and not deal with socks and slippery surfaces, not to mention avoiding a third bump on the head. While it was a success in that Coralyn didn't fall again, it was a failure in a completely different way. Although I had just swept the kitchen floor, her barefeet seemed to be a magnet for any dirt pieces that had avoided my broom. Every time she saw or felt a speck on her foot, she would plop down on cry out, "Uh oh, uh oh, uh oh." She would sit there and do her best to remove the annoying speck. If she couldn't get it herself, she insisted that I come, right then, to help her in her time of dire need. As soon as we got one piece of dirt taken care of, she would get up, take a few steps, and we would go through the whole ordeal all over again.

If only she would be this insistent on keeping her face clean. Oh how she hates for me to wipe it off after a meal!!!

Anyway, this morning her "obsession" with trash went to a whole new level (I didn't know it could get any greater, but I was wrong). She was sitting and eating breakfast when we heard the trashman coming. Food instantly lost all value (which is extremely surprising for Coralyn, given she loves to eat and the first thing she does each morning when I greet her is to put her finger to her mouth and repeatedly say, "eat, eat, eat" just in case the sign wasn't enough to communicate what she obviously wanted) and we had to get up out of the chair and race to the door to watch the trashman do his job.

"Trash, Trash, Trash" she says as she is in mid-bite.

And we couldn't leave until the trashman had turned off our street and was out of sight. Only then did food regain its appeal and back to the kitchen we went. Until we heard the trashman again, on a different street. Despite my explaining that the trashman wasn't on our street, we had to get up and see this for ourselves. Carson and Coralyn stood at the door for quite some time, waiting expectantly for the beloved trashman to return. Eventually the hungry belly won out and back to the kitchen we went, again. Maybe this time we will be able to finish our breakfast!

Nope! I knew it. See, last time the trashman was getting the garbage on the other side of the street. Now he is back to collect the trash on our side. As soon as Coralyn heard the squeaking of his brakes, she dropped her spoon, announced, "Trash!" and lifted up her arms for me to get her down, right away! This was the real deal, the trashman was coming to our house to get our trash. Coralyn and Carson stood mesmerized as the steel arm lifted up the garbage can, threw open the lid, and dumped the contents inside the big blue truck. And they stayed there, once again, watching until he turned off our street.