My granddaughter Hannah visited Saturday. It was great. I sat down this morning to type into my blog and found the paper on which she was drawing. I flipped the page and there was a hand outline that I drew and then placed her hand in the outline and traced her hand. That made me smile. It's not a bad way to start a Monday.
It got me thinking about the times we visited my grandparent's home. It was a huge, old farmhouse. The upstairs and the "sitting room" were off limits to us kids, but there were so many other places to play and to snoop, and I was a snoop.
Each room had a lot of furniture that had a lot of drawers. She also collected salt and pepper shakers. I couldn't touch them, but I left nose prints on the glass looking at them. Friends always brought her more when they visited her. They were stored in the dining room in cabinets. The most fun for snooping was in the dining room. She had a large side board that had three small drawers just under the flat serving area. Under them were two doors, and under them were drawers. Perfect for storing the odds and ends I liked to look and snoop.
On its flat top sat two frosted glass lamps that had cut crystal prisms. They dangled down and circled each lamp. When the sun came through the windows and hit the crystals, it was magnificent. The room exploded into hundreds of rainbows.
The three upper drawers were filled with all kinds of exciting tings for a nosey kid to explore: from buttons and hair swatches, to pencil nubs and pen nibs, from thimbles to thumb guards for shucking corn. All were jumbled together in those drawers.
My favorite thing to handle was a brass and steel hammer. It was so cool. The hammer was just a hammer until I discovered its secret. It was smaller than a regular claw hammer, but was still functional. Its length was about nine or ten inches. The head and shaft was steel, but the handle was brass. The handle was scored into a checkerboard pattern to make a grip. I discovered that the end of the brass handle unscrewed and inside was a screwdriver. Its handle also unscrewed and inside was a smaller screwdriver. Just like those Russian nesting dolls.
The smallest screwdriver was about an inch and a half long. It was fun and intriguing for a young child to see it. Dismantling and reassembling it was a fun thing to do while at her house.
Recently I found a similar hammer. It was smaller, but still had the screwdrivers hidden inside. I hope that when my grandchildren find it tucked away in a drawer, they will have as much fun as I did, unlocking its secrets.