PARENTING: WITH KIDS, IT’S THE LITTLE (ALMOST INVISIBLE) THINGS THAT COUNT

Two bar stools sit side by side at the counter of our kitchen snack bar.  Hardrock maple with spindled backs, the chairs are a matched pair--identical, except for an almost invisible chip in the back leg of one.

And somehow in the scheme of things, that chair, with its microscopic irregularity, has imprinted on 4-year-old Matthew's mind.  As sure as a duckling is of its mother, our son is of his chair.

Easygoing Christie, at two, couldn't care less where she sits at lunch time, as long as there's food in front of her.  But, Matt is devastated if his little sister happens to land on the chipped-leg chair.

"Christie's got my chair!"  His wailing could rival the noon whistle.

"It's okay, Matt Matt," we try to soothe his utter sense of violation.  "She's not going to keep it.  But couldn't she just sit there this one time, since she's already dipped into her soup?"

"No way!"  he cries.  "It's my stool!"  The little guy is not to be consoled.  His father and I exchange knowing looks.  There is nothing to do but switch stools and soup bowls.  Dave lifts Matthew and Christie, while I move the stools.

The dishes are harder.  Matt's brimming bowl slops Campbell's Bean with Bacon on his place mat, and because no one can decide who drank out of which glass--one of them has breadcrumbs on the rim--both must be exchanged for new.

Finally, with Matthew settled on his self-proclaimed throne, we sit down hoping to salvage some warmth from our rapidly cooling meal.  With the clinking of spoons, a welcome respite from the previous moment's commotion, I scan my children's faces.  Jennifer, Stacee, Mike, Christie.  Each child is intent upon the business of noisy slurping--each child, except Matthew.

"For Heaven's sake!  What's the matter now?  Why aren't you eating, Little Guy?"

"Christie,"  he raises his head to hiccough.  "Christie has my spoon!"

How does he know?

My eyes dart from the little boy's mournful eyes to the steel gray utensil held firmly in his younger sister's dimpled hand.  Sure enough, a microscopic fleck of rust dots the tip of the handle piece.

FAMILY: GOURMET DINOSAUR LIVES BENEATH THE KITCHEN SINK

Yes, any two-year-old knows this isn't a brontosaurus,
but when you're using clip art, you can't be picky!

It wasn’t until after we had called the plumber for the third time that I realized we had a gourmet garbage disposer in our kitchen sink.

How else could I explain the fact that it upchucked grisly offerings of amputated chicken tails or oily fish heads and swallowed comparatively palatable tidbits like leftover strawberry shortcake and pineapple tapioca without a problem?

Red potato peels went down smoothly, but the grimy brown remains of Idaho russets became a gurgling clog.

My five-year-old son Michael thought he understood.  “There’s a monster in there,” he deadpanned the first time he watched a spoon disappear into that mysterious cavity, only to see it emerge again flipping halfway across the counter in the twisted shape of a stainless steel pretzel.

Later, as his imagination began to work overtime Michael’s monster became a dinosaur.  “A brontosaurus,” Mikey said.

“You have to give him water,” he told his best friend, David Shelley.  David’s carrot-colored hair accentuated a sudden pallor in his cheeks, as Michael, under my supervision, fed the formidable creature pungent grapefruit rinds and coagulated oatmeal clumps.

Before the day was over, though, I would repent of my misguided efforts to entertain those two kids.

Michael and David had seemed unusually quiet as they played in the backyard for half the afternoon.  Before I could shriek, “What on earth?”, they were trailing in savaged bits of embryonic endive, underdeveloped onions, and a tangled mass of snow-pea vines, not to mention an ill-fated earthworm at least three-feet long.

There was nothing to do but stoically feed the whole mess, minus the worm, to that gluttonous creature beneath the sink. 

“Brontosaurs are vegetarians,” I told those watchful little boys.

The next morning, with a more than nostalgic longing for the “good old days” when people wrapped their garbage in newspaper columns like this one, I called the plumber again.

Sharon Nauta Steele

May 21, 1982

The Lakeside Review

SHOPPING: WHAT'S THE APPROPRIATE FORM OF IDLE CHITCHAT FOR GROCERY CHECK-OUT TIME?

Standing in the grocery store checkout line, I racked my brain for an appropriate topic of conversation.

"There's no need to break out in a cold sweat just because the man in front of you has already thoroughly discussed the weather with both the bagger and the checker," I told myself. "After all, there are plenty of other things you can make your obligatory small talk about, while your groceries are being scanned and bagged."

"Sure there are," the frozen chicken in my cart seemed to say. "You could always ask the bagger how his love life is going."

I quickly put the chicken down on the conveyor belt and pulled a tabloid from a nearby display rack. If I could pretend to be genuinely interested in finding out how a famous movie star had contracted deadly feline leukemia from her Yorkshire Terrier, I might not have to even open my mouth, except to say "Thank you" at the end.

But, just when I got to the part where the dying actress was planning to be buried with her dog (which having already passed on, was patiently waiting in the freezer until the funeral could be held), the clerk leaned over and asked me if I was going to buy the magazine,

Surrendering my reading material, I took a deep breath, and looked that checker straight in the eye.

"Nice outfit you're wearing. Did you make it yourself?"

"Actually no," she smirked, with a gesture indicating that every employee in the store was wearing exactly the same company-issued vests and trousers.

The conversation further deteriorated when I mumbled something about the uniforms being very attractive anyway and she began making gagging sounds.

After that it was all downhill. The checker seemed to take it personally when I mentioned the price of hamburger was up five cents a pound, and when I asked the bagger which was worse for the environment, paper or plastic, he said, "Both."

"Oh well," I finally broke down, "this weather sure is nice."

"Yup!" the two grocery store employees chimed in together. "Do you think it's going to rain?"

Sharon Nauta Steele

THE DESERET NEWS

December 27, 1991

DOGS: HYPER DALMATIAN HAS EYES ON HOLLYWOOD

"If you wanted a calm animal, why on earth did you get a Dalmatian?" my veterinarian asked the day I consulted her about my dog's hyperactive personality.

Pepper, I had told him, has some really annoying habits, one of them being trail blazing. The way our lawn looks, crisscrossed from fence line to fence line, you'd think there was a herd deer out there instead of one spotted dog with an obsession for jogging. 

Next to running, what Pepper likes best is excavating. If I had a dime for every hole that creature's dug, I could buy a dog run with a sterling silver lock.

She has taken over our moonscape of a backyard. It's my territory, she says in the kind of bass voice that would be unbecoming to a female of any other species, and nobody better forget it. Especially no body belonging to a meter reader better forget it.

And she means it! Day after day Pepper keeps a watch out for the electric-meter reader so that when he finally comes by she can engage him in a little over-the-fence conversation. A little over-the-fence conversation goes like this:  "If you even look like you're going to come in here and read this meter, I will personally see to it that no one ever again accuses you of having a nose."

 

Actually, noses are not Pepper’s favorite food. What she really likes are sleeping bags, imported leather boots, irreplaceable wooden antiques, and table scraps. Her definition of table scraps is anything she grabs off your plate when you're not looking.

I tell you, you don't want an animal in the house around meal time, who is big enough to reach the middle of the table, from a standing position.  Once Pepper made off with a whole pot roast on a night when we had important guests. It was not a pretty sight the way she swallowed it whole right there in front of everyone without even so much as a thank you or comment on how delicately it was seasoned.

"What your dog lacks in manners, she makes up for in chutzpah," my husband's boss said as our pet licked her lips and belched before turning tail to go look for a stick of chewing gum.  Of course I didn't know she was looking for gum at the time, but there was no mistaking that she finally found it. I now have an expensive calfskin purse with an easy access hole.

One of the hardest things we've had to adjust to, since we plucked a tiny black and white puppy from a breeder’s kennel with the mistaken delusion that here was a helpless little creature we needed to save from Walt Disney's Cruella De Vil, is our dog's ungrateful attitude.

Instead of loyally sticking around to repay us for our hospitality by playing her designated role as man's faithful companion and protector of his property, that self-centered animal heads off to California every time she gets out. It's downright disgusting the way she looks back over her shoulder as if to say, "Maybe I'll see you around sometime, Chumps," and then makes like a locomotive for the West Coast.

My kids all say Pepper wants to go to Disneyland. But I know what she really has in mind. So far I've always been able to catch up with her before she reached Hollywood to audition for the next 101 Dalmatians sequel.

By Sharon Nauta Steele

DESERET NEWS

 April 8, 1992