Family Life

Happy New Year!

Like most of the world, we were up late last night and slept late this morning. Or tried to. At eight thirty we were deafened by a herd of elephants thundering through the house. That’s what it sounded like, anyway. Our boys, being small children, don’t qualify as “most of the world” when it comes to New Year’s celebrations. They went to bed at a reasonable hour, and were awake bright and early New Year’s Day.

When conditions are right they love to race around the house with a couple of toy vehicles. There are feet pounding on the hardwood floor, plastic wheels scraping, metal toys banging against the wall, kids screaming with exuberance. Sometimes fights break out. Sometimes the hallway radiator cover can’t stand the abuse and falls over with a crash. The kids think it’s the most fun you can have indoors.

Spoilsports that we are, Debbie and I take special precautions to ensure conditions are never right. We block access to the race circuit with furniture or safety gates. We hide the favoured race vehicles up in the attic. We keep the dining room door shut. We know what will likely tip us over the edge into lunacy. We’re not stupid.

But sometimes as a special treat we’ll bring down the vehicles, remove the barriers, and tell three excited boys with shining eyes that they can race. Oh the fun! Oh the commotion! Oh the noise! And then, Clap Clap! Time for bed, boys! Toilet, teeth, pajamas, story, prayers, and lights out. It’s a well-oiled machine we have here. See, even in the midst of chaos we have an exit strategy. From bedlam to bed in six easy steps.

Last night we must have taken momentary leave of our senses. After the boys were in bed we should have put the vehicles away again, replaced the safety gate, shut the door. But we didn’t. Normally we would have taken care of it right away. Like I said, we’re not stupid. But for some reason we didn’t do that last night. Maybe it was the anticipation of New Year’s celebrations later on in the evening. Who knows. In any case, this morning we were jolted awake with the horrifying realization of our oversight.

There were no fireworks in our New Year celebrations, but we still managed to open 2009 with a bang. Here’s hoping your year starts just as exciting.

Photo note: Daniel drifts sideways around the corner, coming into the living room. Note the tongue.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 1st, 2009 at 9:42 pm. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Both comments and pings are currently closed.