Can I eat this?

Several days before The Little Princesses’ first birthday she caught a small cold and suffered her very first illness of her first year of life. Not even so much as a cold up until this point. Of course, Mommy was cautious and carried her immediately to the doctor. She was afraid she might have an ear infection or something horrible, but that’s another story…

The Little Princess decided to share her cold with her mommy and daddy, and Granddaddy and I were called into duty to keep The Princess while her mommy was recuperating from her cold.

To get her out of the house, away from her mother to keep from spreading the germs back to Little Princess and also just to give mommy a much-needed break, Granddaddy and I took The Little Princess to the local cafeteria for lunch. She had been very good and mostly kept her food on the plate during her meal. (Grandmomma was a bit disorganized and not having been responsible for packing for a little one had managed to walk off without a bib or the little plastic table protector that we always use when we carry her out for a meal. We must use sanitized spaces for The Little Princess. No germs are allowed around The Little Princess if Mommy can help it. At least one thing we did remember to take was her oversized chair cover we must have to cover her high chair or buggy if we’re out shopping. We did have to make a trip back for that because we had taken her shopping at Sam’s earlier to entertain her before her naptime, and it was still in the car. Granddaddy had just forgotten to remind me of the little table cover and yep, you guessed it, her bib!)

After our meal Granddaddy went to the take-out order section to get some lunch for Mommy, The Little Princess got tired of sitting in her car seat and began to whimper and fuss a bit. What to do, what to do with a fussy baby?

Thinking I might need to fix some lunch at home for The Little Princess, I had stashed a sweet potato in the back pouch behind my car seat. I pulled it out and handed it to The Little Princess and told her that was her Sweet Potato Baby. She smiled the biggest smile and looked at it, feeling its smoothness and checking out its bright orange color. In her mind it really did become her Sweet Potato Baby. She would hand it back to me, and I would hold it in my hands and rock it like it was a baby. She would hold it for a while, then back to me. This entertained her until Granddaddy came back. The man parked in the car next to us must have thought somebody in that car had lost her mind.

Sometimes a little creativity and a few memories from your childhood goes a long way in keeping you from losing your mind. And it helps keep a modern baby happy. Who wants to argue with success?