Where Sprout Narrowly Escapes Death

I know that sounds like a Charles Dickens serialized chapter title, but it's true. This afternoon, Sprout nearly impaled himself on a super-sharp drill bit in front of our brand new bookcase.

My sister has recently built us a beautiful built-in bookcase, and today Jim was wiring in an outlet at the back of the VCR shelf. I was cooking, and Sprout was supposedly watching the renovations from a safe distance. Even if you think you know your two and a half year old, you can't trust them around things that really get them excited. In our case, power tools. He picked just the right moment to zoom in and push the button on the half-inch drill Jim was holding, and the drill bit was so close to his kidney that it wound itself tightly in his shirt before Jim could turn it off.

Poor Jim. We're on this boy like hawks all the time. You have never seen such attentive parents as us, and somehow he still snuck this one by us. Thank God it turned out all right.

There was a lot of yelling, of course, right then, - from both of us - with the wound up shirt and the big eyes and all. "Sprout!!! You never touch the tools unless Daddy or Mommy says that you can! It's very dangerous!" [Etc, etc, blah blah blah, ad nauseum] It's hard not to yell when you're scared out of your wits. Sprout was scared more by the shouting and carrying on than he was by looking at the big hole in his shirt.

In fact, he was so offended that he wouldn't speak to Jim for a full 15 minutes afterwards. Then he got over it and started to insist on sharing his chili. We are feeling very lucky tonight. And stupid at the same time. Everything as it should be.