A piece of cake

What a fun weekend! Milo had a friend over for a sleep-over and both little boys did great, though they were so wound up it took them until 10:30 to fall asleep. Which would have been fine, but on one of their umpteen trips down the stairs, they realized that they "forgot" Violet, who was in her crib trying to sleep. At least until they charged back upstairs to get her and realized that neither of them could possibly get her out of the crib. She did fall asleep before they did, but I had to pull the "Daddy will get grumpy" trick on her.

For some reason, even though I will completely admit that I am usually more apt to be short-tempered with the kids, Violet will tell you that daddy is the only one who gets grumpy. In fact, I can be in the middle of a grumpy moment and ask her, "Is mommy grumpy?" and she'll answer, "No, Daddy's gwumpy." I don't know why she thinks that, but sometimes the only I can get her to lie down in the crib and stop asking me to nurse is to pretend that I've heard someone on the steps and tell her that daddy's on his way up. She whispers, "I lie down so daddy doesn't get gwumpy!" This even works when he's not home... poor gullible babe...

Saturday morning brought on a flurry of household activity. The boys were playing Wii and Violet was content coloring, painting, and playing with her babies, so I scrubbed the dining room floor and Scott moved our big old TV into the basement in a way that was a complete tribute to his maternal grandfather, Harry. You see, Harry was sort of an impatient fellow and was generally hell-bent on doing things on his own schedule, the rest of the world be damned. He was infamously stubborn and prone to ramming through things without thinking of all of the options -- or consequences, for that matter.

Scott had been waiting for another adult male to come over to our house so that he and the other adult male could move the huge TV down to our basement to be set up with the treadmill. Due to weather issues, no man under the age of 60 has been out to our house since before Christmas except for my little brother and he helped Scott move the treadmill to the basement. For some reason, moving the TV was going to happen this weekend, come hell or high water. Or mushy snow, in this case.

It started off innocently enough -- Scott says, "I think I figured out a way to move the TV downstairs."

Oh, really?

"Yeah. I'm going to strap it to my wheeled cart and take it out the back door."

Oh, really?

"I figure I'll get it down the steps, then I'll put it on a sled and drag it around the the basement door. I won't have any problems getting it in that door and down into the basement."

Why didn't I grab the video camera?

He got the TV out the back door, down the steps, and onto the sled. He pulled the sled half-way around the side of the house, where it hit a bump in the snow. Then the TV and the cart to which it was still strapped, tumbled sideways into a snow bank. Scott righted the TV, paused for a second, and decided to skip the sled, so he dragged the TV on the cart the remaining 15 feet to the sidewalk. True to his prediction, getting the TV back into the house and down to the basement was a piece of cake. Especially when you think that the TV was frosted with snow...