Plunger laughs

Toddlers are learning about the world around them, and often want to interact with real, not toy, items. My son is no exception. One of his latest fascinations is (shudder) the toilet plunger. Ewww! Gross! No, I don’t let him play with it, but he surely does try to. Today I found our sink plunger which, so far, we haven’t had to use. It even had the tag still attached. I realized that this plunger was #1 clean and #2 just baby boy’s size. I put it in the hallway just outside the closed door to the bathroom for him to discover. It took him no time at all to do so, and he crawled all over the house dragging it along with him. When hubby came home, the fun really began. Hubby stuck the plunger to the bathroom door where it would actually stick just long enough for our son to reach for it. About the time he would tug on it, pop, off it would come naturally. Now our baby who is fast turning into a toddler thought this was the most hilarious thing ever. He laughed and laughed and laughed. They repeated this new game over and over. I don’t think I have ever heard my son laugh so much unless someone was tickling him. Of course, his laughing made us laugh, which made him laugh all the more. It was almost like a junior-high sleepover where you forget what you’re even laughing about. Except that baby boy would stop laughing for about a second or two (literally), and hubby would put the plunger back up. Pop – off it would come and baby boy would laugh like he was seeing it for the first time. He kept this up for about 15 minutes. What great exercise! Proverbs says “A merry heart doeth good like medicine.” We sure got our fill today. Who knew a plunger could be so funny. I plan to let baby boy play with the clean sink plunger for a couple more days, and hopefully this will fulfill all his curiosity, so the toilet plunger will be safe. I’m not holding my breath or letting my guard down though.

Speaking of exercise, I got a new-to-me jogging stroller. Yeah! While I haven’t resumed jogging yet, (It’s way to hot and hilly, and most importantly, I am no longer in that great of shape for such things.) I can now walk around our neighborhood (Did I mention it’s hilly?) taking the strides that going straight up and down the hills require without thump, thump, thumping the basket of the stroller with every step or having to walk beside the stroller on the really steep downhills. Also the uneven cracks in the sidewalk no longer threaten to tip baby boy onto the street. Add to that the handy wrist strap so that by the end of a long walk when my hands get sweaty, and it’s harder to maintain my grip, I don’t worry as much about the stroller getting away. (Not that I think I ever would let go, even on accident, but it’s nice to know that if I did, he wouldn’t go careening down the hill, at least not without pulling me along after him!) So tonight baby boy, the dog, and I walked three miles. Yeah! Even as we walked, baby boy would sometimes giggle at who knows what. I almost wonder if he wasn’t remembering the plunger popping off the bathroom door.