By Elissa Caterfino Mandel

My 3-year-old granddaughter assumes that all people are good and that all dogs are friendly. Maybe when your grandmother has agreed to allow you to have a cupcake with rainbow frosting for breakfast, you can afford to adopt this magnanimous worldview.

Anyway, this was how I found myself on Maplewood Avenue Tuesday morning at 10:30 standing just a few steps away from the face of a very large dog. My granddaughter moved in close, barely getting out the words “is your dog friendly?” before she bent down for a mouth kiss that was reciprocated thankfully not by the man with the leash but by the dog.

Let’s just say there is no walking somewhere quickly with a 3-year-old.

Before Tuesday, my relationship with the town of Maplewood had been simple; I struggled to park and I did what I had to do fast. Typically I paid no attention to what was unfolding on the sidewalks. This was not the case Tuesday when thanks to my granddaughter, I encountered a modern-day version of Richard Scarry’s Busytown. All that was missing were the chipmunks delivering mail and the squirrels wearing construction hats.

As soon as she was finished with the dog, my granddaughter turned to a man unloading boxes of arugula and quinoa from a large truck, which he then slid down a ramp into a basement. There, a second man waited and piled boxes. “What these men doing, Grandma?” my granddaughter asked. I explained that what kept these men busy was called a job. They were delivering packages of food for a restaurant called Sprout.

My granddaughter wanted to edge closer to the opening in the street that led to the basement, hoping I think, to watch the boxes reach their destination. She put her hands on her hips. “I want to do this job, too,” she said to the man on the sidewalk. I told her that would be fine as long as she stayed far away from the yawning chasm in the sidewalk.

It turns out my granddaughter is an equal opportunity sidewalk spectator. As long as I accommodated her, she was willing to do what I wanted, an admirable trait in a little girl. I told her I hoped to walk around the corner to see if a new restaurant had opened. I reached down to grab her hand. She wouldn’t take it. “Only when we cross streets, Grandma,” she said. “I’m a big girl now.” Well yes. She ran a little ahead of me and turned back a few feet before she reached the corner. “Now, Grandma,” she prompted.

Hand in hand, we made our way across the street and faced a building that looked like a construction site with paper over the windows and what looked like some drills, a horse, and other equipment on the sidewalk. Of course, in keeping with the Scarry theme, there was a man with a construction hat standing right outside. I asked him about the opening date of the restaurant.

He shared a date, two weeks hence and told me kids were welcome, gesturing at my granddaughter. She appraised him carefully. “Do you have any meatballs?” she asked. “I love meatballs.”

What I find so refreshing with my granddaughter is that we don’t set goals. Days I’m with her, I try not to work. I stop caring how many steps I’ve gotten or even if I’m eating healthily. Make room for scones and giant hot pretzels, everyone. It’s those little things that make the day. I wish I’d been this wise with my own children. But I made them much more neurotic than I should have. I cared way too much about what seem 25 years later like irrelevant details. Did you brush long enough? Am I reading to you every night? Can you count to 10? Can you spell your name? Education, I know now, doesn’t happen with lessons. It occurs in random moments.

With a 3-year-old, even when nothing really happens, it can seem like everything.