Of Fish Flakes and More

Here is a list of things Audrey did within the last 16 months:

1) Write on walls, floors, and door frames - First, she wrote the entire alphabet on the wall behind the sofa using permanent marker. Then she 

wrote letters on randomly selected wall spaces using ballpoint pen. More recently, she wrote words using her inventive spelling on obscure portions of the wall around the kitchen area and on wood (as on the floor and sliding door frame - with the wood grain camouflaging her marks) using ballpoint pen ink.

2) Put foreign objects inside natural openings in her body - First natural opening in her body: her nose. When she was four years old, she inserted four beads inside her nose, three on one side, and one on another. The second time around, still four years old, she inserted yet another bead inside one side of her nose. One might think she would learn from the first one. Nah! Second natural opening in her body: her mouth. Just a few weeks ago, at age five, she placed a pebble inside her mouth and swallowed it. The pebble she swallowed was one among many pebbles her teachers had placed in the large sensory bin in the classroom for children to explore and pour into various sized containers. Could Audrey have imagined these pebbles to be those round M&Ms she loves? She did not tell her teachers what she had done, but had to tell them after she confessed to me at home and I insisted that she inform her teachers. And the third natural opening in her body: her ears. On December 12, 2008, Audrey inserted a bean inside her right ear. There is a blog entry devoted to that incident. She promised she would never ever do such a thing again. Well, there is one more natural opening in her body - no, two - which she has not yet identified as an opening. Please intervene immediately, dear Guardian Angel, when she discovers these openings and a "no-no" idea is about to form in her brain.

3) Finally, fish flakes! She first tasted them during the summer of 2008. She is a fan of seaweed and rice sprinkles, so it is not surprising that she finds fish flakes dispensed from a canister intriguing and delicious. Well, one might think that she would not eat fish flakes again after she got a stern warning from me when she did it the first time. Wrong! In the fall of 2008, she finished the leftover fish flakes she found in a small plastic container we use to store fish flakes. There must have been at least a whole tablespoon of fish flakes left in the container. She also was quiet about this binge. She was busted when I found the empty container. "Sorry," she said. Soon after, I bought a new 1.0 oz. jar of fish flakes. Unfortunately, our two guppies died, and the new fish flakes container remained largely unused. And what do you know? A few days later, with zero guppies in the fish tank being fed, I found the jar empty! I was speechless. I resorted to broadcasting her misdeed to familiar relatives and friends. She felt embarrassed. But is this the end of her fish flake eating days? Only time will tell, and we hope that We hope this list will remain unchanged for a while.