Duh.......!

Have you ever had a day, or a moment, when you were totally unable to think outside the box? When you had somehow fallen into a mental trap that things could only be approached by certain angles? Then, to your amazement and/or embarrassment, someone else comes along and says something so simple and effective that you can't believe that the same idea hadn't occurred to you as well? Well I have. And, if things couldn't be any worse, it was a young child who brought me out of my stupor! Ouch!


A few weeks back I was agonizing over how to keep Pierce (the cute 1 year old I watch) from destroying my downstairs array of African violets and other indoor plants. The gate which Dave had made for me had fallen apart and needed some serious repairs. Since Dave was sick, I needed to come up with some other temporary fix until he could mend it. I decided to block off that same corner with a double stroller and toy bucket, as moving the plants would only change the location of my dilemma.


Soon the little whippersnapper figured out that if he climbed up the couch, mounted the arm rest, and reached over, he could still get his hands on some of the forbidden foliage. Unable to think of any other alternative, I then resigned myself to the stress of keeping Pierce completely off of the couch for several days, or distracted at the very least. He tested me every time he thought I wasn't looking ,though. Over and over, bee-line after bee-line, he persisted until one day the inevitable happened. He decimated one of my poor plants!








"What did you do?"


(Hmm...... tempting.)



The other kids came running and shouting once they saw what he'd done, eager to tattle on the little rascal. We then confined the culprit to his high chair, gave him some crackers, and cleaned up the mess. After we were all done, I turned my attention to what was left of my African Violet and tried to see what I could salvage.

It was then that Christina bounded up to me and cheerfully declared that she had fixed the problem. Sceptical, I asked her what she had done. "Moved the couch!", she said matter of factly. "What?" I said doubtful, then walked over to see exactly what she had meant by that. Sure enough, when I got there I could see that she had moved the couch over to the left about 6 inches or so, which consequently left enough room for the stroller to be place directly between the armrest and the speaker, rather than in a diagonal like before. "Oh!" I said, rather dumbfounded at the simplicity of her genius.

We then placed Pierce on the armrest to see if things had been moved far enough. He worked it, and worked it, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't quite execute his old menacing plan. Bewildered by our laughs of triumph (and sighs of relief), he realized his predicament. After a few more tries he gave up in frustration, and moved on to find the next thing that would cause the same kind of uproar. Meanwhile, I just stood there incredulous to all of the waisted time, energy, and agony I could have used else wise, had my head been screwed on just right. :/