She has found the junk drawer.
Don’t have one? Oh YES YOU DO. You’re just not admitting to it.
Here? We embrace the junk drawer.
Ours is full to the brim with pens, and rubber bands and sewing kits and god knows what else.
The current problem here is that the child has found the junk drawer too.
Now she is always in it. I swear, she comes home and runs right to it1 I wouldn’t mind if the stuff she digs out of it went back in the junk drawer, but that never happens.
I don’t mind that she absconds with the adhesive tape to make her Happy Meal for our dinner adventure. I mind when it’s my turn to go find the tape and it’s long gone or there’s six feet of it hanging from her bedroom door.
Tonight she was digging around in there and she pulled out a spool of string. And scissors. She cut off 2 pieces of string and then left the spool of string on the floor.
There’s a few problems with this - the first being that she did not put it back. The second being that the dog gets it and shuffles off to her crate to eat said string.
I explained to the child that she can’t leave string, or stuffed animals or socks or anything that the dog might eat, because if the Dog eats it and it gets stuck inside it will not end well for the dog.
How the dog is alive still is beyond me. The child is really good about having her toys chewed to bits - crayons and magic markers are a hit and anything furry is just gone as the dog thinks it’s her toy. The child is like eh, whatever.
What’s odd is that the child's favorite stuffed animal gets left alone. Of course, when she was a puppy everything was fair game - but dare I say it - the dog is getting better behaved.
There’s still disappearing crayons and well-licked stuffed animals but there hasn’t been a shoe eaten or even moved in some time.
This isn’t to say the dog is perfect. We have a shelf up high for some special stuffed animals that are/were gifts or fancier than another squishmallow that we can replace if need be - and these special stuffed animals are placed up high out of paw’s reach.
There might be hope for the dog after all - but t’s still to early to tell when it comes to the child. I have about 12 more years to find out how that all works out.
Keep your friends close and your junk closer.
TH and Co.
Unless Carson is around. It’s all about Carson.