Short-Circuited

I have a dear friend who used to say that mothering little boys means having to prevent them from killing themselves on a daily basis. I thought I was lucky since my oldest was a very quiet and careful boy, who hardly ever fell or got hurt. The youngest is a bit more daring, but he's been pretty safe so far -- I think it helps that his brother looks after him too.

Well, today he got into something a bit more dangerous than causing plumbing troubles. I was here in the "office" (tiny bedroom on our second floor) and the boys were playing in the hall and the other rooms when all of a sudden I saw a spark and the computer went off. Kelvin had been playing with some coins (he likes to put them in several piggy banks that they have) and Linton had been begging for a coin. Absent-mindedly, I demanded that he share and give a coin to his younger brother. Well, Linton started playing with it and inserted it in the back of the hallway's night-light. I was so relieved that the night light was a ceramic castle and he didn't touch anything, just let the coin fall, or else something terrible might have happened. The outlet became completely black and the coin (a penny) and the plug melted a bit where they touched each other. Yikes!!!

I spoke very sharply to Linton and Kelvin got very shaken thinking of the possibility that his brother might have been seriously hurt or even dead from the power of electric shock. When I went downstairs to see if I could restore the power to the room (I wasn't able to and had to wait until hubby came home) Kelvin started screaming histerically for me to come because he thought his brother might go near the outlet again. He was hugging his brother, shielding him with his little body, so he couldn't move!

I know I need to be more careful and Kelvin (who's generally very careful) kept telling me over and over again that we needed to cover ALL outlets that didn't have plugs in them and watch Linton at every moment.

Well other than that, this was an uneventful day here. Except that I have a terrible cold. The "waterworks" started today and I can't stand a dripping nose (in spite of the fact that I had one for the better part of my first 18 years of life -- it only stopped when I quit eating dairy foods at 18). Linton, who already had a cough seems to have it too, his nose is starting to run. I don't think we'll have a good night. This reminds me of where I finished yesterday's post -- guess who came into my bed in the middle of the night? Both boys. And I ended up sleeping the last part of the night literally holding Linton so he wouldn't roll on top of Kelvin because when he was on my other side, he fell to the ground (and never woke up, I just picked him right up and them moved him to the other side). Husband is back from Brazil (which is GREAT!!) and I've already warned him that we'll probably have to spend the later part of the night with the boys... oh well, it's not like we're not used to it already!