Crazy Boy

Caleb is a crazy boy. Seriously. I hear other families talking about their boys, and how they do wild things, but Caleb takes the cake. Besides lacking impulse control, short term memory, and fear he has this uncanny ability to chose only those activities that could kill him.

Case in point.

The kids were playing in the backyard and schoolroom one afternoon while I was trying to get some rest with the two smallest children. Our home has hardwood floors, so noise travels. As a result we use white-noise machines to help reduce break-through sounds during naps and bedtime. The kids adopted the nickname "train" and so they are called to this day. Anywho, I had my train on but could still hear the muffled sounds of kids playing hard. A couple of times I thought about getting up and asking them to be quieter, but they were getting along and that was more important than silence. Then, just as I was falling asleep I heard someone running upstairs.

Wait. I don't have an upstairs.

I heard it again.

I sat up to really listen, but couldn't quite make out what I was hearing. I could tell there were kids on the trampoline outside of my window. I could tell there were kids in the schoolroom laughing. I could hear someone squealing on the swing. Everything seemed normal. I laid back down, and started to drift to sleep once more when I again heard the thump-thump-thump of someone running "upstairs." I finally realized that it was someone running down the hall, but the hardwood floors and train combination were distorting the sounds. I settled in for my nap.

An hour later I emerged from the back bedroom. I was met by Bethany telling me that Mr. Coleman came over to say that he saw Caleb on the roof.

Nice.

I sat down with Caleb to get the scoop.

Apparently I wasn't as crazy as I thought when I heard someone running "upstairs." Caleb had used the brick arch over our side yard gate to climb onto our roof. Running around on the top of the roof didn't make the "fun enough" cut, so he decided to use the roof as a diving board onto the trampoline. That was more like it! In fact, it was so much "fun enough" that he talked his younger sister, Leah, into taking the plunge and together they began a circuit of roof-jump-trampoline-roof-jump-trampoline...

I am not convinced that this is ordinary boy-ness.