Olive is now 9 months old and has begun toying with me.  The other day while I was in the kitchen, I looked into the dining room to see Olive peering through the oak railing into the living room below. I could tell she was perplexed simply by the way her head was cocked and ears slightly elevated as if preparing for lift off. This impressionistic display clearly communicated “Huh, how did that happen?” or the ubiquitous “WTF?” Curious myself to see what she was staring at with such intense focus, I make my way into the dining room. “Olive, what’s going…” and as I peer over the side of the parquet cliff, I see it. The twisted, gnarled plush wreckage. Olive’s mini bear squeak toy, lying lifeless at the foot of the domestic mountain. Trapped between the chestnut-colored leg of the couch, and the base of the pewter floor lamp. Olive looks at me with a mixture of shock, curiosity and helplessness. At least that’s how I interpret it. If you look closely, you can see what I can’t, the cartoon bubble floating over her head. It reads “Watch me get this without moving a muscle.” As if on cue, I proceed down the stairs into the living room to retrieve Olive’s bear from its hellish crash landing. I come back upstairs, toss the bear to Olive and return to the kitchen. Not 30 seconds later, the deafening silence grabs my attention. What do I see? As if I am watching a slow-mo replay of a Superbowl touchdown, Olive, striking an identical pose, peering over the side of the parquet cliff, as if to say, “Oops.” As I make my way back down the stairs to once again rescue the tiny plush beast my goofy pooch has casually tossed away like a rancid fish, it occurs to me that I’ve just been trained how to fetch.