Anchors

Yesterday evening I sent Dash upstairs to put on his sweatpants for karate. A couple of minutes later a shriek pierced the air, calling Daddy to help - the sort of shriek that normally indicates he can't find his socks, or that Mabel has broken some vital piece of lego. Daddy was in the bathroom. I was annoyed with Dash for being unable to complete even the most simple of tasks without needing parental intervention, and ignored him.

A couple of minutes later, B headed upstairs to see what the fuss was about. He found poor Dash standing, Atlas-like, under his tipping-over chest of drawers, wondering when he would be saved. He had pulled all four drawers out, and, just as I had envisioned a couple of weeks ago when I realised the chest was not anchored to the wall and cautioned him not to do that, the whole thing hadn't needed much more than a gentle tug to tip over. Luckily, Dash is, after all, a superhero, so he was not squashed like a bug as my imagination had had him.

The chest of drawers is now anchored to the wall. And I think we need to talk about safety words with Dash so that we can all tell the difference between "Aaaaaghh! My favourite jeans are not in the drawer!" and "Aaaaghhhh! This time it's serious!"