A Two-Year Old's Day

It was a bad day for Owen. I will share three of the highlights, or maybe lowlights, of this day. (There might have been more.)

The kids weren't up for too long when Owen came up from the basement crying. I asked him what happened and he said, "Ahva did it." (Ahva=Ava) I asked him, "What did Ava do?" Owen said, in his robot voice, "Ucker me. Eye." As he pointed to his eye, I see it is swollen and red. I asked again what did Ava do. "Ucker me. Eye." I asked him if Ava 'uckered' him and he nodded. I couldn't figure out what 'ucker' meant. So, I called the perpetrator.

Ava reluctantly came upstairs and I asked her, "What did you do to Owen?" After a brief explanation of what the fight was about, she concluded with, "...so, I threw my candy at him." Although I knew the answer at this point, I still had to ask. "What type of candy was it?" Ava answered, "A sucker." Ouch. Three days later, there is still a red mark.

The second event, though not as painful, cost me a yardstick. My good one, too. It was a full 48", not the actual 36" yardstick. I think the increased length is what got Owen into trouble with this one. Again, Ava and Owen were playing together, this time in my bedroom. Ava was playing piano, and Owen was, well, testing the limits of the yardstick. (Which I got out to center a wall hanging, so it is really MY fault he had it.) I hear a loud crack and Ava screaming for me to come. I run in there and see Owen crying, standing on my rocker/recliner in the corner, with the broken yardstick behind him. He is holding the back of his bare leg saying "owie", so I ask Ava to explain this one. She says Owen was sitting on the stick and it broke. With more questions, I established that Owen had put the stick across the arms of the chair and when he was sitting solely on the stick, it caved. Luckily, no real injury out of that one besides maybe a tiny splinter?

Our third trauma could have been life-threatening. Take it from the girl who stuck a key into an outlet at age 4. Maybe it's in the genes? I was touching up some paintings on the wall that had been annoying me for some time. I stood in front of the humidifier in our bedroom, not wanting to move that to get at the paintings. I don't think it was running, but it was plugged in. Owen was playing at my feet. What I didn't know was that Owen had a penny. As you are putting the pieces together in your head, it probably didn't go down as you are thinking. All of a sudden, there were sparks flying, the blue kind, and smoke. I screamed because I was right in front of the outlet. A loud pop and a fuse was blown. The girls were crafting in the kitchen and when the lights went out they screamed, too. It all was only seconds long, but I looked down to see Owen still holding the penny and the humidifier still plugged in. He had wedged the penny in between the plastic plug and the wall, the penny touching both prongs of the plug-in. I grabbed Owen (who was crying), and the penny. When I finally looked at the penny, I saw the two grooves where the posts had been, and some blackness where it was burned. Wow. (And yes, I am saving the penny.)

Well, that was one day. I am glad we have more. And I am glad we have God's protection over us!

I am fairly certain after posting this, that they will take back my "Mother of the Year" trophies. That is, what's left of them.