Story time

Sylvia likes the cat box

One day, Sylvia's mom arrived home just in time to see Sylvia following the cat into the litter box. The sitter, dear woman that she is, was so horrified that she insisted on washing Sylvia's hands and checking her mouth to make sure she hadn't eaten any of the nasty stuff. After an hour of cleaning and reassurances the sitter left, finally convinced Sylvia would suffer no lasting damage from her encounter with the cat box.

Sylvia likes that her dad is back home

After a 10-day absence (an eternity so long Sylvia had almost forgotten her dad a week earlier) Sylvia's dad arrived late at night, long after Sylvia had fallen asleep in her car seat. The next morning she awoke to find her dad back in his bed, right where he belonged, and she grinned and stared, and grinned some more.

Sylvia likes mud

Sylvia's dad missed his garden while he was away, and so Sylvia and her dad and her mom went to their garden the night after Sylvia's dad returned. Sylvia ate rocks and dirt (just like normal) and then discovered something new: mud. A hose left running created a beautiful mud puddle, which Sylvia splashed her hands in. Being not so coordinated about crawling, Sylvia fell, face first, into her lovely mud puddle and came up covered from nose to forehead with squishy, dark mud. Happy girl that she is, she laughed to find herself covered in mud and soon spread the stuff all over the rest of her face and body.

Unfun parents that Sylvia's mom and dad are, they stripped her down to her birthday suit and squirted her off before dressing her again in a new diaper and new outfit that they then insisted she keep free of mud. A young Chinese woman (who had admired Sylvia's muddy countenance and clothing) told Sylvia's mom that American babies must be very strong because Chinese babies would get sick from playing in the mud and being sprayed with cold, cold water in the evening.