Rory Vs. The Dish Towel

There's a war raging at our house, y'all. And even though it doesn't even come close to what's happening between Isreal and Gaza, I'm a bit worried. In order for you to truly understand the ins and outs of this fight and decide who's side you're on (No Swiss allowed), you will need a little background information.

Around the time that Rory started to crawl and stand up, she became obsessed with the stove. (I know.) This isn't really a problem because as I've said before, I don't really do much cooking.
Like the rest of America/the world, we always leave a dish towel hanging from the oven handle for hand drying and quick clean ups.

For some reason, Rory cannot stand to see the dish towel hanging from the oven handle. I first noticed it when she would crawl around the kitchen while I put the dishes away in the morning. This wasn't too surprising considering the dish towel was directly in her line of vision, taunting her, and basically begging to be pulled down. She would pull it down, I would put it back, and she would pull it down again. Typical baby behavior.

But it didn't stop there. One afternoon I noticed Rory crawling all the way from the living room to the kitchen just to pull the dish towel down. Once it was on the floor (it's rightful place, apparently), she crawled back to the living room and continued to carry out her important business of sticking plastic blocks in her mouth.

This bordered on odd behavior, so I hung the dish towel back up and waited. As soon as Rory noticed that the towel was hanging back up, she crawled back into the kitchen just to pull it down again. Okaaaay. 

Over the next few days, I did some more experimenting. I hung up various colored and textured towels, but no matter what the towel looked like or felt like, it obviously belonged on the floor.

Eventually, I gave up and began putting the towel on the counter where Rory couldn't reach it, but then Rory learned how to open up the kitchen cabinets, and I quickly discovered that her favorite cabinet (second only to the liquor cabinet) is the cabinet under the sink, which so happens to be where I store, you guessed it...the dish towels.

One day I came into the kitchen from the laundry room to find that Rory had strewn the clean dish towels all over the kitchen floor. Everything else remained untouched. Apparently she doesn't have beef with the sponges.

Over the last week, Rory and the dish towel seem to have come to an agreement. She only pulls down the towel when she's in the kitchen and wants to pull up on the stove. (I know.) Otherwise, they leave each other alone. Which begs the question...If a 9-month-old and an inanimate object can agree on a cease-fire, why can't Israel and Gaza?