Dodging Bullets

We have many "dodge the bullet" moments in our house each day.  There is no less than 15 times a day that I think, "I have no idea how he didn't get hurt!"  The boys continue to surprise me, first of all, by what they choose to get in to and, secondly, how they manage to (usually) walk away unscathed.

We bought a house in late October and moved.  It's a great house - around 35 years old, one-story on the river.  It was only owned by one family and the man was an engineer, so he put the best things inside of it that have withstood very well through the years.  Eric and I often joke, "It can make it almost 40 years but it only takes our boys a few months to break it!" 

Anyway, we haven't made many changes in the house since we've moved in.  In fact, most everything looks exactly the same.  We figure we'll be here forever so why rush to get things done?  We have a gas fireplace in our den.  Obviously we don't use it much here in the Charleston area, so we haven't yet updated the gas logs inside, which are broken up a little and unusable.  We have left them inside just so there would be something, figuring we would eventually buy new ones.

Eric and I are in the other room this afternoon actually having a conversation.  The fact that we were able to have a conversation for longer than 10 minutes should have been our first clue that something was amiss.  I'm not sure what was the reason that caused Eric to go into the den.  All I know was what followed...you gotta love it when you hear your spouse say, "Hey insert your name here, get in here, and bring insert your child's name here with you!!"  So I grab Cade by the hand, who by this time has tired of whatever is going on in the den and has meandered into the other room with us, and off we go towards the somewhat frantic voice of the male parent of the house.

Remember the gas logs I mentioned?  Yes, that was the item of choice today.  We entered the room to see the graphic display of what once were complete gas logs broken up into no less than 57 pieces and scattered around the room.  And there's Kai proudly saying, "Wood!"  And there's Cade standing beside me calmly, apparently having no idea what has caused the frantic call of his father.  "What did you guys do?!" I ask, although it was quite obvious...and again I hear my 2-year-old explain it to me..."Wood!" 

So it appears that it took our boys deciding to redecorate the fireplace area for us to clean out that fireplace...we spent the next 30 minutes cleaning up the mess.  I will never forget Eric's comment in the middle of the display..."What a great family activity!"  I must say the kids did seem to enjoy the treasure hunt of finding all of the pieces of "wood," and we were able to use it as a teaching moment about what NOT to do and what MIGHT happen IF, and so on and so on... (I think this falls into that same category as yesterday...what you should tell your children that you never thought you would need to tell them...).

Today we bypassed another injury...Eric and I don't even want to think about what could have happened to the little feet and hands from the broken logs.  I said a prayer of thankfulness, again, and asked God to please give our Guardian Angels a raise.  By now they must by asking for a transfer...