Oh, What a Tangled Web

Ryan has always been very contented to play in his playpen by himself for quite a while when Mommy and Daddy are working on something in the next room. So last night when we were on a Skype conference call, we tucked him into the playpen with a bunch of toys and let him entertain himself while we worked. About 45 minutes later, we wrapped up our call, complimented each other on how quiet and well-behaved Ryan had been (which should have been our first clue), and went into the living room, where we were greeted by a little boy standing in a cardboard box, grinning at us – and totally wrapped up in various colors of thread stretching from around his belly to his various toys, over the side of the playpen and back. He was essentially in the middle of a rainbow-colored spider web.

My sewing table happens to be right next to the playpen, and the drawer that’s closest to the playpen is full of spools of thread. Ryan apparently discovered that he could reach over to that drawer and helped himself to about 30 spools of thread, which he then rolled around the floor, dropped through his toys, and wound around himself. He even had a large, colorful tangle the size of a small gerbil dangling from his backside like a festive little tail.

Once Herb and I stopped laughing, it took us several minutes and a pair of scissors to free him from his bonds. He wasn’t at all bothered by them; in fact, he seemed to think it was kind of fun to put this arm through that loop and that leg through this loop. The whole scene actually reminded me of a birthday party my mom threw for me when I was maybe 7 or 8, when she took skeins of crochet cotton and made a giant spider web in the living room. Each guest took an end of the skein and followed it to a goodie bag at the end. We all loved it as much as Ryan did!

As soon as I shared this story, I was reminded by my mom friends that silence from the next room is usually a sign of impending disaster – or at least a sign that little hands are getting into something that they shouldn’t be. At least it wasn’t my makeup drawer, or a craft bin with paints and markers. Although no doubt, someday it will be…