A Few of My Favorite Things

She is the perfect embodiment of that phrase about one man’s junk being another man’s treasure. She acquires random objects with careful deliberation: a plastic tube for holding coins, my old school pins, two stray toothpicks, one earring, an assortment of coins. It’s strange to see old childhood relics making an appearance, and I’m now glad my parents didn’t throw it all away. She collects anything with a lid: glass jars, plastic yogurt or ice cream cans, used pocket-sized hand sanitizers.

She puts them all carefully together in various bags and containers she finds. She’s terribly sneaky about finding some knick-knack at my parents’ house, then secretly stowing it in her diaper bag to bring home. Once my mom caught her at it and told her, it’s okay, you can take that, after which she kept repeating, “grandma said I could take it!” Since it was probably something that would have gone in the trash can, I wasn’t too surprised.

I used to be worried about her losing them, until I realized she knows exactly where all of them are. Where’s that paper clip? I know, ma-ma, she says; it’s in the green container upstairs (it’s strange how grown-up-like she is when she talks to me now; it’s all “Ma-ma, let me tell you” or “listen for a bit, ma-ma”). Then I started wishing I could lose them, just to avoid having random trash-like objects strewn everywhere around the house.

When I tidy up these days, it reminds me of her. Sometimes I feel like taking a picture of the things I find: her stuffed dolphin and chick sitting side-by-side in the middle of the door to his room, when she put it there for him to play with (and instead nearly tripped us with). Her dolls and bears sitting in the bumbo chair, swing, or high chair. Stickers everywhere. I have to check my clothing for random stickers before going out. Once she stuck a big rainbow sticker in the center of D’s black T-shirt and he wore it all day without noticing.

She reminds me sometimes: it’s the little things. She forces me to stop and notice the little things, and that’s good.