Furry Meets the Firemen

Furry Furry, with the big blue eyes - Oh how I adore that child!

He turned two this month and decided to put the T in Terrible, by locking his dad out of the house and seizing the opportunity to wreak havoc.

We have been having terrible ice storms here, and as such, WS (Furry's dad) has been having more trouble than most with the walking-on-the-ice skill. Maybe it's because, having grown up in England, he doesn't have a lot of experience with the kind of ice we deal with every winter here in the Midwest U.S.

Anyway, he was being particularly careful the other night when he took Furry home to wait for Bojo. He carefully carried him into the house and set him by inside the door before returning to he car for the bags. He had not made it down a single step when he heard, "Bye Bye daddy" and the distinct click of the lock.

Now, I have been the first to condemn WS for some of his past actions, but for this one, he has my complete sympathy.

I know I would certainly not want to have to call Bojo to tell her that her precious babe was currently "home alone." Heh heh.

But WS did make the call, and also the call to the fire department to break into the fortress Bojo calls home.

Meanwhile, ever the attentive and resourceful dad, he realised he could poke his fingers through the mail slot on the front door to hold it open, and therefore keep an eye on Furry.

Furry, however, was having no part of the fun new talk-to-daddy-through-the-mail-slot game. Instead he headed straight to his most sought after forbidden fascination: the china cabinet.

"Wow," he must have been thinking, "Now I can touch all those pretty dishes mummy never lets me touch!"

And touch he did! WS got to watch as Furry touched all the china. And by touch, I do mean picked up, dropped, and shattered.

Put yourself in WS's place for a moment now. You are kneeling on your ex-wife's front porch in sub-freezing weather with your hand wedged into a mail slot watching your toddler son systematically break nearly every piece of your family's generations-old-shipped-from-England family china.

On top of that, you know your ex-wife, who has the temper of a rabid dog, is on her way home to (presumably) kill you.

Meanwhile, your beloved blue eyed boy has only one word for you, "Uh-oh," uttered in your general direction after each shattering crash.

In the end, the fire department was able to break through a window and gain access to the house. When they opened the door, Bojo and WS rushed in to find Furry standing amidst shards of glass looking a bit confused as to why there were a firemen in his living room.

After bandaging some minor cuts on his hands the firemen posed for pictures with Harry, who kept repeating, "Firetruck? Uh-Oh!"

Uh-Oh is right my adorable little imp of a nephew! I now have an even bigger soft spot in my heart for the little shite. This is the stuff family history is made of! It is what childhood is about - the breaking of glass and the colouring on walls; the flooding of the bath tubs and the pudding spilled on the rug.

Each scar, every stain and all the chaos is evidence that he is a normal, healthy, inquisitive little brat!

But he is our little brat, and even though he is sticky and messy and constantly in possession of at least one bandage and "boo boo" I still would not have him any other way.