Pouring Beans

I don’t even have enough cerebral anything, as I limp into the weekend, to muster quick takes. Seven whole thoughts about stuff? Gak. Or one single coherent consideration of something terrible in the world? I don’t think so. Not even the debate that I didn’t watch can tempt me.

On a day like this when every muscle and toenail just hurts, I think the obvious course is to remind all people everywhere, who might be faced with a child who is fussing and tired and angry and bored, a very young child, in other words, not a tiny baby, but a big lugging little child who is seeking what he, or she, might destroy, to let the child Pour Beans, or water, water is fine too.

What do I mean? Your very young child is not currently pouring beans and you don’t even know what I’m taking about? Do not fret. Here is how you can arrange for your child to pour beans (you Montessori people will probably not need to read any further since you already have your whole lives together. I, on the other hand, don’t have anything, much less my life, together, and so was so helped by a detailed explanation of a child pouring beans).

So, you first need the child. And you might need to be frustrated with the child because they’ve destroyed everything. And then you need beans. Uncooked Beans, would probably be a helpful tip. Lentils are fine too. Or water, if you don’t totally hate yourself. Ok, so, you have the child, the beans, now you need two small containers, preferably with spouts but measuring cups or something like that would be fine too. And then you want some kind of capacious tray. I always wished I had a refrigerator box so that I could put the child and the beans in the box and be done with it, but it never happened.

Once you have all your ingredients–child, beans, two pouring containers, tray or something–you put the child somewhere, and crouch very low and you say, “hush your crying, watch me pour beans.” And then you pour the beans back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. When the wheels of the child’s mind have kicked into gear and you can see them slowly slowly slowly turning, you help the child affix one of the containers into his, or it may be her, own hand. You have two options now. You could just let him, or her, “pour” and then together you both can pick up all the beans by hand, or you can guide the child’s hand as she, or he, pours. Perhaps the child is already favoring a hand, in which case, you might pour one direction, and she, or he, might pour the other.

This will last probably a total of three and a half milliseconds before the child looses interest and goes off again to seek and destroy, but the next time it will stretch a few breaths longer, and then longer, and then, someday, before they are ready for college, you will be able to say, “go pour beans!” in a cheery way, and the child will toddle over and pour beans. Or, it may be, that he, or she, will ask you if the beans might be poured, and you can say a cheerful yes.

So there you are, the solution to all your worldly problems. Bean Pouring. Personally, if all the powers and principalities of the world would stop doing whatever it is they’re doing now, and just pour beans back and forth, I bet the world would be a nicer, less destroyed, more cheerful place.