Ice 101 for Preschoolers

"Be careful, Eric it's really slippery out there!"

WHUMP! "WAAH!"

"Eric, you were running. We told you to be careful."

"You said to be careful. You didn't say to WALK." Next lifetime I'm marrying a poet, not an engineer :-). Damn literal children.

Today:

"Eric, it's solid ice out there. I want you to walk carefully to the back porch."

I didn't say 'directly' to the back porch. Boy proceeded to climb straight up a snowbank that we have behind the back deck. Kaylee and I get our coats and boots off. I shout out the back door, "Eric get in here NOW!" Then the daughter starts for the stairs hollering "Night night, kee kee!" Meaning, "I would like my nap and my pacifier now, please Mommy."

So, I left the boy in a snowbank, ran up to the third floor, tossed, well not tossed but put down very quickly into her bed and flew down the stairs.

The boy is flat on his back, flailing and yelling in the driveway. Two small tootsie pops later, he is good as new, with a nasty looking lump on the back of his head.

"I WAS walking to the back porch!" he wailed. I guess I didn't explicitly say "Don't go by way of a frozen snowbank behind the deck."

Grumble.