Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Who Knew Trains Could Fly?

The illness has lifted. Mostly. There are still bouts of coughing but for the most part, the Tot is back to sleeping and I am back to feeling in control. Sort of.

Yesterday was the Husband's first business trip since the Tot has been born. I was less than thrilled to be a "single parent" even if it was only for an overnight, but we did okay. We played together most of the day and he took a good nap in the afternoon. When I started dinner, I put a show on for him to watch. I was thinking to myself how smoothly things run when there is structure. I was sort of writing a blog post in my head about my need for structure and how stressed/tense I become when my plans are disrupted, when the carrots on the stove started to boil over and the burner started to smoke.

I quickly turned the burner down and re-situated the pot, but when I was getting some stuff from the fridge, it happened again. Again, I turned the burner down and then decided just to turn it off and move the pot. Meanwhile, the whole downstairs was filled with smoke. I ran around opening the sliding glass door and the windows and turned on the fan, fearing that the smoke alarm would start blaring and scare the little guy at any moment. The Tot loved having the back windows open and was running his Thomas the Train up and down the sill saying "choo choo, choo choo". So, I went back to making dinner in the kitchen.

Two minutes later I hear "Choo-choo! Choo-choo!" in distress. The Tot is standing at the window but there is no Thomas to be found. I looked for him on the floor and then realized I could faintly here the sound of his whistle. Coming from outside. I looked closer and realized that the windows had no screens in them! They were gaping open into the night. Unfortunately, the Tot had figured that out before I had - hence Thomas' unscheduled trip to the backyard. Of course, as soon as he had flung the little train out the window, he wanted it back. I quickly closed the windows and went to the back door to "rescue" Thomas.

The sliding glass door was being heavily guarded by the largest moth I had ever seen. I tried to turn the back porch light on, hoping to lure him away from the screen, but to no avail. I then tried swatting him off the screen and blowing at him. After several attempts, I finally managed to deter him for a minute so I could slip out the back door. I had no shoes on  and the back yard was dark. I was squinting at every leaf, clump of dirt and rock. Praying not to meet any critters on my journey, I hopped through the grass to Thomas and dashed quickly back to the back door. I managed to distract the moth long enough to get myself back in the door and return Thomas to his happy owner.

The Tot was thrilled to have Thomas back. He was even more thrilled by the "throw stuff out the window" game. Unfortunately, this game doesn't work if the window is closed. But, that didn't stop him from trying. So far this experience has taught us that Mommy is a sucker who will brave many things for her child (and who should really pay more attention to open windows) and Matchbox cars make a loud "thunk" when you pitch them at the window. Also that if you don't stop throwing things at the window....you get a timeout.

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