The Hand Is Quicker Than The Eye

In retrospect it was absolutely hysterical, a comedy of errors that proved, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that truth is indeed stranger than fiction. However, like many if not most incidents viewed through the somewhat distorted lens of hindsight, it was not quite as hilarious while I was actually living through it.

My adorable grandsons visit my home at least one afternoon each week during the school year to spend a few hours with Savta while their mommy teaches a couple of back-to-back extracurricular lessons in a private academy nearby.

And although I am ‘Savta’ to my grandchildren, I fondly refer to that and other weekly time slots spent watching various beloved grandchildren as ‘Bubbysitting.’ It is an opportunity to help my children with their child care expenditures and to get to know my youngest grandchildren better, at one and the same time. A definite win/win. Well at least most of the time.

A few weeks ago, my daughter-in-law dropped off her four-year-old and ten-and-a-half-month-old boys, and issued the usual instructions before rushing off to teach her first class: Bottle for baby at 4 p.m., dinner for both boys at 5:15, etc.

I knew the drill well and could usually tackle it without a hitch. This time, however, I was also watching the boys’ eleven-month-old cousin, who was asleep in a Pack-n-Play in an upstairs bedroom when they arrived. As luck would have it, he was due to wake up (or be awakened) at precisely the same time as his slightly younger cousin was due to have his bottle.

Long story short, despite the fact that I can easily be the featured poster child for “Haste makes waste,” I foolishly rushed to prepare the bottle on the dining room table just before going upstairs to bring down the sleeping baby, instead of preparing it on the kitchen counter as usual.

Needless to say, in true Murphy’s Law fashion, I somehow managed to tip over the half-prepared bottle, thereby spilling powdered baby formula and liquid semi-prepared formula all over the dining room table, and wasting most of the powder in the sectioned-off Materna compartment.

Thankfully the formula container had one more pre-measured section remaining, so after spending precious minutes on the huge mop-up operation and boiling up more water for the replacement bottle, I was able to prepare a new one (on the kitchen counter this time!) and strap the baby into his stroller to drink it while I belatedly dashed upstairs to wake his cousin. Strike one.

Baruch Hashem the two brothers behaved perfectly for the sixty seconds that I was upstairs retrieving their cousin; it was only an hour-plus later, when I was orchestrating dinner for the three boys, that things once again spiraled out of control.

The oldest of the three sits at the kitchen table on a regular chair and generally requests cereal and milk for his dinner with Savta. Easy enough. I just set his bowl on a milchig placemat, pour in his sweetened cereal of choice and some milk, and viola! ‘Dinner is Served!’

The two younger ones have to be strapped into a booster seat and high chair respectively, and then I either spoon-feed each of them in turn, or cut their solid food into minuscule pieces, generally a bit of both.

The eleven-month-old is blessedly usually a good eater, but his younger cousin is generally more fussy. And his new shtick involves letting Mommy and/or Savta know that he has had enough by spitting the food everywhere!

Let’s just say that I got the message loud and clear!

Older brother had polished off his first bowl of cereal and requested a refill by then, but had left a bit of cereal and a fair amount of milk over from his second bowl. That explains how, in a totally unexpected and admittedly impressive move, as I was freeing the little spitter from the high chair, his arm shot out and he grabbed his older brother’s bowl and unceremoniously dumped its contents over the tablecloth, chair, and floor! Literally in the blink of an eye!

I quickly grabbed a few napkins from the napkin holder on the kitchen table and positioned them on the spill to staunch the flow; the major cleanup could wait. Instead I pivoted around toward the counter, with the baby in my arms, to avoid him causing an even bigger mess.

Unfortunately, however, I was in for another surprise almost immediately. My husband had returned home in the interim, and had stopped by the kitchen to grab a few chunks of watermelon for a refreshing pre-dinner snack. In the process, he had left the open 3-liter container of cut-up watermelon on the kitchen counter.

Out shot the baby’s arm again, and in a split second he had overturned the container and spilled virtually all of its contents onto the kitchen mat and floor!

My mother-in-law was visiting at the time, and she was every bit as horrified (and simultaneously impressed!) as I was. My daughter-in-law returned from work to find the two of us (nearly thirty and sixty years her senior!) stooped over and/or crawling on the kitchen floor scooping up and discarding handfuls of watermelon.

I joked that my remarkably agile grandson reminded me of Batya, the daughter of Pharaoh, who had miraculously stretched out her arm to retrieve the basket with baby Moshe inside, thereby saving his life and setting the eventual geulah in motion. Here it was the baby whose arm stretched out (twice!) quite miraculously; but rather than redemption, he inadvertently wreaked havoc and destruction!

Between the three generations feverishly mopping up the ten-month-old’s mess, and the rare good fortune that the other two boys behaved beautifully throughout, soon the kitchen (and my frayed nerves) had returned to normal once more and all was well with the world.

The three boys returned to their respective homes and families, and I belatedly got busy with dinner. But something tells me that neither my mother-in-law nor I will soon forget that eye-opening and hair-raising demonstration, unexpectedly provided by our adorable pint-sized grandson/great-grandson magician, that proved to us both that the hand (even a tiny one!) is indeed quicker than the eye!

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