Beech Tree News Network

I’ve noticed there are particular things or themes, sometimes both, in children’s lives when they are very young.  For my daughter, Nikki, it was string and nets.  Nikki was forever tying string to things.  Often, I would have to take a detour through my dining room because she had tied the kitchen chairs together, and her toy horses were usually yoked together with whatever string or ribbon she found lying around.  At the time, it seemed like string was hanging from everything. 
While Nikki watched TV, she would weave pieces of string together into friendship bracelets.  It wasn’t uncommon at the time to find three pieces of string taped together at the top then attached to my living room coffee table, an unfinished bracelet hanging down the side.  As an adult, the necklace she wears most often is a piece of carved whale bone attached to a cord.
 When Nikki played in the bathtub, she would trade in string for those woven plastic bags that hold onions.  The bags became nets with which to rescue stranded dolphins or whales.  She even fashioned a stranding net out of two straws and the netting from an onion bag. 
Dish towels and couch throws are my granddaughter, Sabria’s, objects of affection.  As soon as Sabria started crawling, she learned to pull up on the stove and grab a dish towel hanging from the oven handle.  She immediately placed it on her head and continued crawling around the kitchen, sometimes unable to see, because the towel had covered her eyes.  One particularly amusing moment happened when she crawled under the kitchen table then tried to crawl back out, only to find herself bumping up against the table leg.  She put her head against the leg of the table and pushed, but it wouldn’t budge.  I waited to see if she would go around, but she refused to do so.   She started to get very frustrated, so I removed the towel, revealing the object of her discontent.  She slapped the table leg and said, “No!” then crawled out from under the table and back over to the stove, where she removed another dish towel.
Sabria is five years old, and she continues to play with my dish towels.  She still wears them on her head, although not as often.  Most of the time, she uses them as beds for her collection of mermaid dolls.  When she plays “vacation” she cleans out the dish towel drawer, packing every last one into a small bag that she takes to the beach—the large rug in my living room.  Once there, she makes hotel room beds for the mermaids and later, uses them as beach towels for the dolls.  I will end up fishing hand towels from the bathroom closet to use in the kitchen.  I’ve tried trading with her—a hand towel for a dish towel—to no avail.  The dish towels are much more worn, but she prefers them. 
When Garey’s mom, Aggie, visits, she recoils in horror at the sight of Sabria using dishtowels in the floor.  I try to tell Aggie that the towels will be thoroughly washed before they are used in the kitchen again, but it does little to assure her, especially when Aggie sees Sabria drape one of the towels over her dog, Angel. 
Sabria also likes to wear couch throws around her shoulders or fastened under her chin.  I keep large safety pins in a junk drawer in the kitchen for such times.  The throws become coronation capes or Rapunzel’s long beautiful hair.  I understand this, it was something I did as a child with old sheets.  Like Nikki, Sabria believes in reinvention.  There are still pictures that cross my mind of toy dolphins hanging from the bathroom faucet in an onion bag or T-rex with his head on a pillow, covered with a dish towel.
Sabria’s dish towel fetish will get to me from time to time—usually when I open the empty drawer—and I will say something like, “Sabria, you have a gazillion toys, why are you playing with Gee’s dish towels?”
“It’s my vacation, Gee,” she will answer simply.
Far be it from me to get in the way of a person’s vacation.