Things you should tell your children...

Today is Saturday in the spring, which means birthday parties abound.  We are heading to one today, and the boys are super excited (much more excited than their parents!).  So we got them ready and sent them outside to express their excitement out of earshot. :)

Eric is in the shower when I hear him say, "The lights!"  I notice that the fan has stopped running and I'm pretty sure I heard the air conditioner click off (and considering it's 88 degrees here today that's a stress-maker...).  Now let me say that my handy husband (you can hear the sarcasm, can't you?!) got up this morning and worked on two of our lights that were not working.  Granted, one only needed a light bulb and the other only needed a pull string.  But our first reaction is, "Wonderful...that was too good to be true!"  And not just me...he said the same thing.

Nevertheless, I run out to the garage to the location of the breaker box to see if I can figure out the problem while Eric finishes his dark shower.  Much to my surprise (although I'm not sure why I was surprised!) I see Cade sitting on top of the storage container that is on top of the table that is directly in front of our breaker box. 

Now maybe somewhere on earth there is a mom that would not have immediately assumed her 4-year-old was the culprit of this little electrical debacle.  But not this mom...I immediately say, "Did you touch the breaker box?!"  Of course he says, "What?" - maybe because he doesn't know what a breaker box is, but probably because he is thinking of how he is going to get out of this situation..  You see, we never TOLD him not to touch the breaker box (or even what a breaker box is, for that matter!).  We just assumed that he wouldn't touch it.  And you know what they say about assuming...

So I say all of this to say that there are many things you should tell your children that you never thought you would need to tell them.  In this crazy world there are dangers that we never thought would exist.  I mean, let's face it...we traveled on vacation every year playing in the back of the car with no seat belts and we were always just fine.  But it's different now.  So this little episode reminds me that we should pray for our children daily - for those crazy little things that we never know might creep up and put our kids in danger. 

The rest of the story?  Yes, Cade HAD touched the breaker box.  In fact he had every single one of them turned to the "off" position.  Eric quickly remedied the problem, we explained to Cade the seriousness of what he had just done, and breathed yet another sigh of relief.  It's just another Muckin Moment around here...