Saturday, March 14, 2009

SCAVENGER BABY

I was watching Anna the other day.
Despite being only 14 months old, I simply know that she would survive indefinitely if I was suddenly to drop dead of a mysterious illness while everyone was out.
She came into the living room on Thursday morning. My parents had dropped by the afternoon before for coffee and I had been working afterwards so hadn't tidied up. She walked round the coffee table carefully picking up every biscuit crumb, every raisin that had fallen from the leftover wedding cake we had been eating. She found a whole chunk of icing under the coffee table and downed that too. She ate a hairy leftover biscuit from under the couch that I can only assume had been Pudge's a week or two ago. She lifted a soup spoon and fed herself the half cup of latte Charlotte had left on the table. Then she moved on to the bin where she picked out several fusty food items that were barely recognizable. From there she shuffled through to the dining room and started on the crumbs, noodles, cheese and bread crusts lying on the splash mat under her high chair. I swear I could lie dead for a week and she'd just eat her way round the house!

2 comments:

The Scudder said...

And you watched her do all this scavenging ??? Did it not occur to you that the wee soul might be either ,, eh, Hungry or Tidy ??

Phyl said...

It was interesting, scientifically. I confiscated everything that was off and rewarded her with suger puffs when she got as far as the dining room!