Survivor

I write this post after my son's 5th call to 911. When he would call in the beginning, they would always call back to make sure that we were okay. Now they don't even care anymore. *sigh*

This post is actually about Isaiah - the ultimate survivor. If there were a show that was really about survival (and not about group dynamics like the TV show Survivor), I would totally enter Isaiah. Well, I'd enter him if there were no minimum age... I really think that if something happened to us and Isaiah was the only one left, that he could live on his own for a month or two.

You might ask why I believe that my 16 month old is the ultimate survivor. Well, let me explain...

Since Isaiah was first able to crawl, he has had an attraction to the trash can. When we first put him in his high chair, he was immediately drawn to the assortment of food that lay in the trash can. (He can see down into it from his chair.) I remember having to move the trash out of his reach at the earliest age. Then, when he was first able to crawl, one of the first places that I had to banish him from was the trash. He would sneak over to the kitchen, crawl up on the chair and see what kind of wonderful foods he could find. Our lid for the trash broke a couple of years ago, so we can't keep it covered. Isaiah likes it that way.

Isaiah never cries for food. He scavenges. The other day I heard knocking on the patio door in the basement. I walked downstairs to see what was going on, because my four kids and the neighbor were just watching a movie. Apparently, Isaiah was the one who had been knocking on the door (which is right next to the TV area). The kids, not really thinking about the fact that he's 1 year old or that that was raining, let him out into the backyard. I'm sure that if the movie wasn't so good that they would have thought twice about letting him out into a monsoon-esque rain storm. By the time I got downstairs and realized what was going on, Isaiah was knocking on the door from the outside. I opened the door, and he came toddling in the house with a half-eaten rotten apple in hand. He was as happy as can be. He proceed to sit down with the kids and eat his find.

Realizing that he was hungry (and eating a really gross looking apple), I went outside to grab him a fresh apple off of our apple tree. I took the rotten apple from his little clutches and replaced it with a perfect, fresh picked apple. He immediately threw it at me and started crying and pointing at the rotten apple. It took me a while to realized that he prefers rotten apples because they are easier to bite. Once I had this revelation, I would cut a slice out of a fresh apple. Then, he would resign to eating it.

I wish I would say that this was a solitary incident, but it is not. Mark planted a garden this year full of carrots, strawberries, and tomatoes. Isaiah doesn't like the tomatoes, but he loves everything else. He digs in the strawberries until he finds some good little morsel that he can get his hands on. If he can't find anything, then it's off to the apple tree to find another rotten apple!

Isaiah tries to be a well-rounded baby, so he doesn't limit himself to food. Last week, I was standing in the kitchen making dinner, and Isaiah walked right past me to the patio door, which was open. He walked with purpose, so out of curiosity, I watched to see where he was going.

Isaiah climbed down the deck stairs, and walked to the play house, where the kids had left a couple of plastic cups. He grabbed a cup and then turned around, walked to the stairs and climbed back up to the kitchen. Holding his cup, he walked past me again, down the hallway and into the bathroom, where he pushed the step stool up to the counter. He climbed the stool and onto the counter, where he turned on the faucet, filled his cup with water and started drinking. That's a baby that knows what he wants!

Now I just have to be more aware of Isaiah when we're out and about - I can imagine how excited he'll be about eating out of someone else's trash. At home I bury anything that has touched raw meat in the bottom of the trash - or if it is empty, I throw any dangerous items in the trash outside. Now I just have to come to terms with the fact that my kids don't need me anymore. My 16 month old doesn't even need me! Actually, now that I'm writing this, it's actually kind of liberating. Hmmm... I wonder if I can potty train a 16 month old. We already know that he can climb onto the toilet...