Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

There are many days when nothing happens that is blog-worthy. But when I was laying in bed last Thursday night, trying to relax and fall asleep, my mind ran over several funny things that happened that day. I just remember laughing a lot, though it was generally a rotten day. All of these things happened in the evening.

Funny thing #1: while I was working in the kitchen, William came in and seemed to be messing with something on his thumb. Thinking he had a hang nail, I took his hand to examine what it was that he was playing with. It turned out to be a booger stuck to his thumb. I quickly grabbed a napkin and wiped it off. William started yelling, "No, it's mine! It's mine!" and then he sank to the floor in tears. Ryan and I laughed and laughed. And William was right, it was his.

Funny thing #2: Actually, at the time, this wasn't very funny. I was attempting to make dinner so that I could get going to scrapbooking night at the church. I had decided to use the last few potatoes, since they were going to go bad soon, and make baked potato soup (one of my favorites that I make often in the winter). For some unknown reason, I went to boil the potatoes and then removed them thinking that I would just boil them with the soup. So I took them off, made the soup from milk and butter and put the potatoes in. Only then did the thought come into my mind "Susan, what in the world are you doing? The milk is going to burn if you try to boil the potatoes in it!" So I removed the potatoes, strained off the thick milky soup as best I could, and boiled the potatoes in water. I then tried again. In the end, the soup was OK (definitely not my best work), but it took twice as long to make and I messed up twice as many dishes trying to fix my mistake. The whole thing was just stupid.

Funny thing #3: We had just got our chimney cleaned that day, so Ryan was going to build our first fire in the fireplace. William watched on as I read my book on the couch (Claire was in bed). Ryan had a nice fire set-up and lit the newspaper. Then Ryan turned to me in panic, "Susan, is the flue open?" " I don't know, didn't you check" That's when the smoke from the catching fire started to fill our living room. "Quick, put it out! It's closed!!" Ryan, grabbed a piece of wood and started frantically stabbing the burning newspaper and cardboard, messing up his carefully laid firewood. We then looked at each other and laughed. I opened the flue and Ryan tried again. This time it worked and our living room had a nice smoky aura to it. Ridiculous.

Funny thing #4: While Ryan was fixing the fire, William had Ryan's big Maglight flashlight. William was cradling it in his arms, pointing excitedly to its light on the ceiling. William then tried to turn to his body so that he could point to the light and in doing so, he kept moving the light (since it was in his arms). The end result was William "chasing the light" as he kept turning in circles trying to point to it, chattering wildly the whole time. Ryan and I were in tears laughing at him as he was spinning in circles, tyring to figure out why the light kept moving while he was trying to point to it. He got so dizzy that he fell over, flashlight and all. He then repeated the whole process. Crazy kid - who needs pets when you have kids!!

Funny thing #5: After the fire died, we decided to go to bed. While Ryan was finishing up in the bathroom, William climbed in our bed and laid down on Ryan's pillow, hiding himself with his blanket. Ryan came in and saw William laying there, "William, it's time to go to your bed". William didn't move and lay as still as possible, hoping that Ryan wouldn't notice him. Ryan finally asked "William, can I sleep in your bed?" William responded in very distinct words "Don't sleep in my bed." Now understand that most of what William says is gibberish with a few coherent phrases here and there. He can say anything he wants to, but in the mean time, he just blabbers about who knows what. Ryan looked at me and we laughed again at the clarity in which William spoke this command.

Funny thing #6 - the last one, I promise: Now that William was in his bed, Ryan was crawling into his side of the bed, he asked me "Susan, I want to return that book to ___, where is it?" My mind started racing when I realized that that particular book was now in the home of the wrong person. I was tired of it sitting on our desk and I kept asking Ryan to take care of it. When he wouldn't, I took it upon myself to mail it to the person I thought it belonged to (he lives in St. Louis and we hadn't seen him since we moved). Turns out, I mailed it to the wrong person. Without responding, I just stated laughing and laughing at the thought of this strange man receiving a book that wasn't his with an note of apology in it for keeping it so long. I was so embarrassed with my mistake that I wouldn't tell Ryan who I had mailed it to, though he tried to tickle it out of me. Whoops.