Friday, November 30, 2012

Little hands

This is a tale of my great-niece. Here she is with my niece, her mommy.



Every other week, my niece comes over to my house while I'm at work and does a little housework for me. I have contracted with her to do this because I tend never to get around to it, and then my house gets unacceptably dirty.

My great-niece is preschool age, and she comes with my niece. When I get home in the evening after they've been here, the cleanliness tells me my niece was here, but I find other clues revealing my great-niece's visit.

The next time I turn on my TV, for example, it's tuned in to a station that shows children's programming, and the volume is rather louder than I generally have it.

A while back, I bought this dog carrier on wheels, thinking I would need it to smuggle my dog into my workplace.



It turned out, happily, that there was no objection to my bringing my dog, so now I just walk boldly into the building with him on a leash, and this carrier stays home.

Meanwhile, back when I was in college, my mom gave me a gift of a little stuffed lamb. Perhaps I was a bit old for such a gift, but my mom doesn't see it that way.

This is what I look like about now:



This is what my mom sees when she looks at me:



So one time I came home after the housecleaning, and eventually I noticed that the little stuffed lamb was in the dog carrier. The next time I saw my great-niece she said, "I was at your house." I said, "I know, because I found a little lamb in the dog carrier." She giggled.

The last time they were here, after I was home a while, I noticed my dog was nosing around the box I got for him. He likes to sit in there sometimes.



I noticed the door was shut and latched, and I knew the little girl had found that interesting. So I opened the door for him, but noticed after a little while that he did not go in the box. So I looked more closely and realized the little stuffed lamb was in there. So I took it out to make room for him.

I'm guessing that my great-niece likes to pretend that the little white lamb is my little white(ish) dog.



It's kind of fun to find evidence of my little sweetheart's playing around my house.

And that's my story.