Heart Skipped a Beat

Do you have one of those moments where you see everything flash before your eyes? I don't have them too often, thank the Lord, but today I had one where one of my worst fears was coming true. Let me backup a moment to set the stage. Sunday night or in the wee hours of Monday morning I was up with Cooper for longer than I wished and as I was sitting in his room, I noticed that the air conditioning (AC) was running for a very long time. I didn't think too much of it as I was more concerned about getting my butt back into my own room so that I could plop my head down on my pillow rather than having it bob as I drifted off to sleep in the chair in Cooper's room. As Monday rolled around we had things to get done in the morning and upon coming home I looked at the thermostat and it read 79 when it was set at 77. Ok....it's just trying to catch up or something. Well a little but later, it read 80. Not going in the right direction for the AC!! I went down stairs to find condensation everywhere on the unit and on the outside unit there was ice! UGH...not the norm in 90+ degree weather. So that beings us to today. The repair guy came this afternoon and found that we had low freon and hence, a leak somewhere. He located it and then we decided to go look at the paperwork from when the unit was installed to see if it was still under warrenty. I had that paperwork upstairs in the dining room. With Cooper in hand we went up and started looking at stuff. I was trying to find a business card that I knew was in the paperwork so I sat Cooper down on the floor and didn't think twice as he crawled in the living room by his brothers. Then, in the middle of our conversation, I heard a sound that I never heard before, but I knew EXACTLY what it was. Cooper was tumbling down our basement steps. I couldn't see him yet, but I knew that the bottom, concrete floor was not going to be forgiving should he meet up with it. I panicked. I ran for the door and skipped down he stairs as fast as I possibly could. By some grace of God, he didn't go tumbling head over heals, he was more so barrell rolling down them. Which slowed him down enough that he actually caught himself enough to slow down and I caught him about 1/2 way down. He was screaming. I was breathing in that panicked way that a scared silly parent does and I was just hugging him, looking him over and trying to be calming when inside I was a mess! He was fine. No bruises. Nothing hurt, except for my pride! I have 3 boys and never had any of them tumbled down steps like that. Now that it has happened, I know just how quickly it can happen. And now, every time I am out of the living room and he goes crawling that way, I have a brief second of panic as I quickly glance to make sure that door is shut tight. So to all of you with little ones, remember to shut those doors, make sure the baby gates are secure, and don't ever say to yourself, "It'll just take a second," as you leave your baby someplace they could get to an open staircase. That second is all it takes...

Wonderful Sound...

Saturday Rick and I heard a wonderful "new" sound. 

It was a sound of very quick tempo. 

So quick it was hard to keep up. 

According to the "metronome" that was used it was 178 beats per minute. 

Can you imagine that? 

Not quite sure how we're going to keep up with that one,

but I think it'll slow down a just a bit over the next few months...

just like I will.

One of the Many Things....

....that I love about my husband is that he takes the time to let the boys help when constructing or fixing things. Any thing from putting on the license plates to constructing a piece of furniture, he typically takes the time to let the kids get involved in one way or another. This past weekend it was when putting together a new piece of furniture to house our new TV. A few weeks ago - the first weekend of the Olympics, to be more accurate - the picture tube on our old, beast of a television (you know the ones that have a back that is almost two feet deep) went out. Had it been any other weekend, we probably would have waited a while before going to buy a new one; however, I could not, just could. not. watch the Olympics on the 19" television we have in our bedroom. Selfish, I know. But Rick was more than happy to go pick out a new one for us.

So, back to my original purpose of this post. It makes me smile when I see Rick taking the time to involve the boys with simple things. Things like counting the number of screws in the package. Things like pushing a little wooden dowel into the pre-drilled hole. Things like pounding a twist and lock fastener into the pre-drilled circle, and helping them with the hammer because it is too heavy to keep pounding on their own. Simple things, but things that make them feel SO BIG!! They thrive on that type of Daddy time. And I thrive on knowing that my children have an absolutely wonderful father that will take a 5 minute task and allow it to take 30 in order to involve the boys.