CRASH

Yesterday I heard a thud, followed by a shattering crash.  I did not hear crying, thank god!  I counted the boys in the living room, one...two, as I double stepped to the upstairs.  As I approached Chase and Ryder's room this is what I saw:

The thud was the dresser, the shattering was the piggy bank!  Notice the hamper scattered about and the books on the floor, also part of his mess, yet separate.

My heart stopped for a second before a naked and crying Chase ran into my arms "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm sorry" was uttered between sobs.  It took a while before I could determine that he was not crying because he was hurt, just scared.

It turned out Chase wanted the responsibilty calendar, a magnetic chart we use to monitor certain behaviors.  He wanted to play with it.  This is interesting for a number of reasons one being that we hardly use the thing because the boys' mother forgets we have it.  Another is that if he wanted to play with it, which he may have because they both have a fascination for playing with the magnetic stickers, he could reach it without climbing. 

But, for some reason, he climbed.  My suspicion is that he opened the middle drawer and then used the drawer as a stool.  The whole thing fell forward and somehow, I thank my lucky stars, did not land on him!   His piggy bank shattered everywhere and I was surprised that there was actually a lot more money spread about the floor than there were shards of ceramic.

 

I managed to stay calm as I tried to stress how very dangerous climbing on furniture could be.  I tried to stress how lucky he was that he did not get hurt.  I am not sure if he understood.

We punished Chase.  Not because he was being bad but because he did something he should not have and put himself in danger.  We took away Memory and stories.  He is not very happy with the situation, but he is dealing.

We've had our walls drawn on and our oils spilled.  We had dirty diapers thrown about and window screens damaged.  it was just a matter of time before furniture was knocked over.   The surprising part was the culprit.  Everyone who saw this picture before reading this entry guessed it was Ryder.  I laughed, understanding their disbelief.  But, the truth is, had it been Ryder to climb on top of , the bureau, or anything, it never would have fallen over.  He can scale things like the Spiderman he thinks he is.

It wasn't so bad in the end.  The damage looked bad, but it cleaned up pretty easily and only the piggy bank was ruined.  Still, it was scary.  I think over and over how lucky we were that he was not beneath it.  And, that Turner and Ryder were not in the room.