There’s A Turtle In Our Home

There’s a cute little turtle in our home. It’s always lying on its stomach on the floor, facing a direction that it wants to go in. It pushes forward with its back legs, but doesn’t know exactly how to use its front legs in tandem with the rear in order to move forward. And thanks to its unending efforts, it occasionally manages to raise itself slightly but then ends up rolling over onto its back. It doesn’t know how to roll back to its previous position so it starts crying and I have to rush forward to help it back onto its stomach, ready to push ahead again.

But every now and then, I take my eyes away from it for a couple of moments and when I look back, it has moved forward a bit. I look at it and it looks back at me. No movement, nothing. Then I go back at my laptop. After a while, I look at it again and again I find it has moved forward quite a bit. First it was lying on a play-mat. A few moments later, I found it on the floor. Then, in the play gym. Then under the coffee table.

Like I just said. There’s a cute little turtle in our home. It moves when no one is looking, stops when there are eyes on it. Unsuspecting Dad uses the quiet time to catch up on his work. The unaware Mom prepares dinner in the kitchen. All is well, until you hear a thud. No longer able to maintain her balance trying to climb onto the front of the couch, the turtle – our 7 month old daughter – finally falls sideways onto the living room floor and the suddenness of the fall scares her more than it hurts, and she erupts into loud screams again. I rush to her aid again, pick her up in my arms and try to pacify her, while her Mom also arrives from the kitchen and inspects the scene. Our little girl gets a bit of affection from both parents and once she has stopped crying, I put her down on her play-mat again, and hand her her toys. She is happy now. The Mom is back in the kitchen, and I back at my laptop to resume typing the blog post I knew had been pending for weeks. I write a couple of more sentences, and just as my concentration is back, I throw a quick glance around the room to find my turtle again lying on its stomach on the floor. Where is it headed now?