the thud heard 'round the world

otherwise entitled,
the story of the crib jumping incident that ultimately heralded in college football season: a series of fortunate events

event 1: last thursday morning around 7am, i was making breakfast preparations when i heard a ton of bricks hit the floor in one of the rooms above. because the thud shook the house to it's foundation, i thought perhaps thomas had fallen out of bed. thomas normally is up and gone by breakfast time but on this particular morning he was still sleeping since he had worked until 4am(the law is a jealous mistress). i ran upstairs to check the commotion. scarlett's door was open and the little she-monster was stumbling around her room. this was a big shock to me because scarlett is a crib sleeper and had never made any attempts to climb out of her bed, even with all my crib-escaping lessons that i had given her in the past. from the looks of it, scarlett had somehow shimmied over the side rail and fallen on her face. she looked like sylvester stallone at the end of rocky 4 and and her verbal articulation was not much better than sly stallone in any movie he's been in. she was having trouble answering simple questions and she was struggling with using her arms and legs and her eyes kept rolling back in her head and she couldn't keep her eyes open. and all she wanted to do was lay down. so, like any sane person whose child was acting like a beached whale, i drove methodically and calmly her to her doctor's office because i knew they would see her faster than the ER. just the week before i while i was running, i saw the E! news True Hollywood Story about the death of natasha richardson due to a blow to the head, so i knew i couldn't waste time. it was a blessing that thomas was home that morning so that he could stay with reagan at home. after a quick checkup, scarlett was deemed truly indestructible and i was advised to just watch her for the day and to not let her sleep too long. the only prescription given by the doctor was to move scarlett out of the crib ASAP.
and as fate would have it, we received a letter in the mail from nebraska furniture mart regarding scarlett's crib, the very same day. we were informed that her crib was being recalled because it was a detriment for small children who want to stay alive. the letter also stated that we were to return said death trap to the store and we would be issued a store credit.

event 2: uncle bonecrusher is back in town for about 6 weeks! we all love when uncle bonecrusher comes to visit! he makes very mundane things every exciting because he is such a novelty to the kids! he's like a human jungle gym. i love having him in town because he is a faithful gym partner. it's so wonderful to work out with him and be able to blame any inadvertent gas passing on him. no one would accuse me of flatulence when my little brother is there with me, right?

event 3: saturday night, the whole fam damily loaded up and made an excursion out to nebraska furniture mart in quest of returning the death trap and putting our store credit toward a couch for the man cave. and if you've never been to nebraska furniture mart before, it is almost date worthy. it contains a small restaurant, a coffee shop, and 10 football fields worth of furniture, carpeting, home decor and electronics. we already had a twin bed for scarlett and we could think of nothing better to do than make our basement a haven for college football viewing. we were victorious. we scored an amazing deal on a very slightly used couch(we think it was repossesed) complete with cup holders and built-in massager.

event 4: this week, with the help of uncle bonecrusher, we did some furniture rearranging in the man cave. we moved the best tv downstairs and created our college football viewing arena.

unfortunately, this meant moving the heaviest tv known to man upstairs, out of the college football viewing arena. this particular tv was gifted to us a few years back and has served us well. at its creation it was entombed in a solid oak swiveling entertainment box and stand. this added about 400 pounds to the regular weight of the tv. it requires at least 2 people to move up and down our twisting basement stairs. also, because it is entombed in solid oak, it is as slick as an onion. at one point on the stairs, the tv slipped and came hurtling back down the stairs. because i was a bystander and not a mover, all i could do was stick my bionic arm out to feebly attempt to catch it. luckily, uncle bonecrusher sacrificed his body and stopped the tv from going through a wall. however, because of the great force of the tv, uncle bonecrusher's bionic bottom went through the wall.

event 5: the hole in the wall on the basement stairs is the most exciting thing that has ever happened to my poor entertainment deprived children. scarlett has stared in fascination at this hole as if it is the 8th wonder of the world(and if you think about it, it's way cooler than that horrible kimberley locke 8th wonder song, so scarlett is partially right). reagan has decided that the hole in the wall is a secret passage. and of course, it's also something for the kids to fight over. it's like a toy, but cost a lot less.

after further explanation to the children of what happened to the wall, scarlett has deemed the wall, uncle mark's poo poo. since that is a little embarassing, and she says it about 64 times a day, i attempted to teach her another phrase for describing the hole. using deductive logic she renamed it, uncle mark's bottom hole.

hurray for college football.