"I thought I could pick this up with my hands full."

March 27, 2015

Notable Stats

Over Gross Capacity Limit (OGCL) – The amount of weight your child could carry even though his or her hands are completely full. This number maxes out at zero and can be negative when you are forced to carry your child instead.
 
Solution Eureka Time (SET) – The time it takes for your child to realize they must drop everything if they want to pick anything up. Our youngest’s time is resting at infinity at the moment. 
 

Our daughter roams the Earth in search of three major things. Crackers, a flashlight, and a comb. However, there are times when she wants to join in to help cook or just be in the mix and has a tough time in the chaos. Such is the life of the youngest. She has to elbow her way in. 
 
However, she often negates any helpfulness once she obtains one of the three aforementioned items. She refuses to put them down once they touch her hand, although this does not stop her from attempting to pick other items up.
 
We have a step ladder so they can reach the cooking area or just reach higher ground in general. It usually is on low lying hooks. She will attempt to lift the ladder off of the rung by herself. A ladder that is practically her height already and roughly her weight too. She can pull it off under the right conditions.
 
However, most of her conditions are the wrong ones. That is because she usually has two combs, a flashlight and Ritz crackers in both hands when she is trying to pick up the ladder. As I watch her gliding over to the ladder area with enough luggage to be charged twice at the airport, I correctly anticipate she will ask for help. However, I rarely anticipate that she will actually be upset and utterly surprised that she needs it. 
 
Of course, her inclination to either underestimate how heavy something is or miscalculate how many arms and hands she was born with, can spill into other areas. As a matter of course, she exits the bathroom with pants dragging on the ground. Not because she cannot dress herself, but because it was a priority to immediately pick up a comb before doing so. It is as if the comb either will grow hands and assist her in pulling them up or is a magic item that will defy gravity and teleport her pants to her waist. 
 
For all intents and purposes, she cannot be counted on to help carry much of anything, which is generally the rule for a three-year-old. Thinking back, our other two may not have been helpful either. One because he would turn anything he carried into a projectile, and the other because she would be so careful that it would take a month to get through the airport. 
 
Speaking of airports, we recently tried to give our youngest a suitcase and in her valiant effort, 2 seconds after she was assigned the task, she abandoned the suitcase. Upon a second attempt, she ran away from it screaming while trying to get it in the elevator.
 
This occurred with her hands empty. 
 
So maybe she just can’t help in the way we would like at age 3. That is fine, but we would at least have her understand that the odds are not with you when you are trying to do any lifting with six objects in your hands while combing your hair at the same time.
 
- Doug Glanville

 

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