Chapter 5
The Muddy Marauder's March
Undeterred by the cereal incident, Ashtin emerges from the house, now slightly damp and dusted with oat flakes. His next objective is the backyard, the fabled land of pirates. He envisions himself as a fearless explorer, digging for buried treasure. His chosen digging implement? A bright red plastic shovel. However, the backyard presents its own set of perils. A rogue sprinkler head, triggered by his adventurous stomping, erupts, drenching him anew and turning the grass into a slick, muddy slip-and-slide. Ashtin, in his enthusiastic attempts to 'dig,' ends up in a comical, unplanned mud-wrestling match with a grumpy-looking garden gnome. He emerges from the mud, a small, brown, determined warrior, his dinosaur pajamas now sporting a distinct earthy hue. The sounds of the pirate game, though muffled by the mud, beckon him onward.
Ashtin, a small brown warrior encased in dinosaur pajamas, surveyed his domain. The cereal catastrophe had been… an experience. A sticky, milky, floor-glazing experience. But Ashtin was not one to dwell on the past, especially when the siren song of adventure, disguised as the boisterous shouts of Laison and Emma, echoed from the backyard. Pirates. He vaguely understood pirates involved swords and maybe parrots, and definitely shouting. And he, Ashtin, a three-year-old of considerable (in his own opinion) stature, was being excluded. Unacceptable.
His parents, Tonya and Amber, were a study in contrasting parental styles. Tonya, his Nauni, was a whirlwind of anticipatory disaster management. Her eyes, sharp and loving, seemed to possess X-ray vision for impending scraped knees and misplaced sippy cups. Amber, his Dad, was more of a benevolent observer, a gentle giant who found amusement in Ashtin’s every flail and wail. Today, they were both operating on low alert, their forces seemingly depleted by the morning’s breakfast skirmish. This, Ashtin decided, was his window. His great escape.
He’d shed the remnants of his cereal-soaked shirt, leaving his torso a canvas of pale skin dusted with stray oat flakes. His bright red plastic shovel, a trusty companion in his backyard excavations, was clutched in one sticky hand. The backdoor, a gateway to the hallowed grounds of pirate endeavors, beckoned. With a determined grunt, he wrestled with the doorknob. It was a familiar adversary, a tall, imposing barrier designed by adults for adults. But Ashtin was a toddler of remarkable ingenuity when motivated by exclusion. He employed the patented Ashtin Wiggle-and-Twist maneuver, a complex series of body contortions that, combined with a well-timed shove from his hip, finally yielded. The door swung open with a sigh of ancient hinges.
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