Prickly Pooper

It is so good to be reminded that good things - including funny bone-tickling memories - can come out of less-than-ideal situations.

One long-ago Easter, Little E and I took our turn helping out in the church nursery. I was surprised and delighted to find that E's younger half-sister Audrey was among the children to be guarded so her parents could attend the worship service. I'm pretty sure E was not yet aware of her connection to this little girl.

Like E, Audrey must have inherited her bouncy blond curls from the S.D. The mothers, both with poker-straight hair, confided in one another that they wondered what other paternal traits might lurk behind the girls' adorable exteriors. With a shared maternal shudder, they momentarily projected forward to the teenage years and early twenties ... but for now, the innocence of childhood and the chance to instill lessons for a lifetime.

E was a precocious two-year old, but other than jumping off a bed and knocking out two bottom teeth ... hey, wait a minute, maybe there's a pattern here. A genetic link. That's it. I always thought I had contributed the daredevil gene, with my early propensity for climbing and then attempting to fly like a superhero off the neighbor's porch ...

Back to the nursery and the job at hand: Keeping the kids safe and reasonably content so frazzled parents could experience a little sanity and sanctuary for an hour. Audrey obviously did not understand or care about my job requirements. She was determined to ride the little scooty toy down the two-foot slide in the play area. I was able to successfully redirect her a few times, drawing her into story time, doodling with crayons and playing house. But as soon as Audrey felt my attention turn to another child, she was back at the foot of the slide.

On about the third or fourth attempt, I caught her at the top of the slide seated on the scooty toy, her goal so close she could taste it. (Geesh, I'd forgotten how fast little people can move.) The gleeful look of anticipation on little Audrey's face was priceless. But I snatched her away from certain disaster with her little legs furiously wheeling in the air as I once again tried to explain my position and responsibility for her safety. "I no wannabe safe! I wanna go down da slide, you Big Ole Prickly Pooper!"

I'm sure the chuckles were oozing out of my pores while I attempted to keep up appearances of being the adult in charge of maintaining discipline and order. I turned to the other nursery helper, quietly rocking some well-behaved child in the corner while watching our little drama. She issued a little giggle so I knew she heard it too. E was sitting just outside the door, reading a book. She wasn't the slightest bit interested in being around "little kids," but her ears perked up at the insult directed at her mother. Surely, the wheels were turning about how this little tidbit might be used in the future.

Audrey spent the remainder of the service in modified temper-tantrum mode - facedown on the floor, beating her little fists and feet against the carpet, fiercely muttering about the injustice of it all, little "prickly poopers" and other words I couldn't quite catch issuing from her little mouth.

When her parents came to rescue her, Audrey trotted off to her daddy (not the S.D.), probably hoping he would put me in time out for ruining all her fun. Her mommy and I shared a few quiet laughs when I gave her the report. I learned that in those days of Rugrats (aka Babies Without Borders) Audrey had needed some reprogramming lessons about namecalling and "bad" words. She had been learning not to call people "stupid." And her mom had been teaching her that it's OK to be angry, but it's not OK to say some of the words she heard grownups say on TV ... or other places. So they'd practiced making up silly phrases to say when angry - a "safe," secret lexicon to help relieve pent-up frustrations. Prickly Pooper, it seems, was one of the favorites that had come out of their mommy-daughter discussion. Somehow, two-year-old Audrey had missed the part of the lesson about not directing the phrases at anyone.

Remembering this little story today, within the context of the past 20 years, has me thinking just a little about Nature vs. Nurture (among so many other things). Those teenage years I had worried about years ago sped by and E is now in college. She's soaking up the experience in a way that's uniquely hers. And Audrey? We lost track of her not long after the Prickly Pooper incident. I hope she and her mom are enjoying those teenage years ... and that Audrey still has that same spunk. Maybe she's taken up skydiving or bungie jumping. Or maybe we'll discover someday that she shares quieter interests with her big sister E ... similarly nurturing a passion to change the world for the better.

Isn't it interesting to see what happens when those Xs and Ys collide and then are put out into the world? Anything is possible.