Colt the Chef

From the time Colt was born, he was making a nuisance of himself. He wasn't like my first born, Scout, who had always stuck with me and, mostly, minded me. Colt had a mind of his own and didn't want to use mine. Sometimes he pushed me to the limits of my mind though. Take for instance the fact that when he was a toddler I was in dire fear of taking a bath unless someone else was around to watch the baby. I had friends who thought I was an over-anxious mother because I was always panicking whenever he got out of my sight. But true to form and against my better judgment he proved me right when the opportunity came along.

One day when Colt was seventeen months old and we were alone I decided that I could take a quick bath and be in and out before he had a chance to get into anything. Now I know that was a stupid assumption but that's what I thought.

I told Colt that I was going to take a quick bath and I wanted him to be a good boy while I was in the shower. I jumped in the shower and took about a ten minute bath, just hitting the highlights and not bothering to dawdle. When I got out of the tub I wrapped a towel around me and went to check on the baby.

I found Colt in the kitchen. He had pushed a chair up to the stove where he had been playing. I gasped at the mess. He had taken a piece of dry toast and smeared cold, congealed bacon grease all over it. He had made an open-faced grease sandwich. To top it all off, he had coated it with a generous layer of sugar from the sugar jar. Lordy, my baby made me a grease sandwich. What in the world would he be into next?

I got the video camera out and recorded it as proof: Colt, the chair, the sandwich, the sugar all over the stove top. The proof that it never paid to turn your back on him. There was no telling what he would get into if he wasn't watched constantly. Through it all Colt stood there grinning like a 'possum and proud as a peacock. That's my boy!

PIO