A challenge

Before I thrown down the gauntlet, let me set the scene.

We live in a Victorian Rowhouse or Townhouse (terraced), with multiple floors. When we first bought it, I had two children and none on the horizon (ha). The kids had one floor and we had the top floor, with an extra room for a study/work out room or whatever we fancied. Before we'd finished bashing down walls and rearranging rooms howver, the bonus baby was on the way and my dream room was officially the baby's room. It's great in that if he wakes I am not a whole floor away. However, there are 56 stairs from our family room to his bedroom so putting him to bed at night requires a Sherpa backpack, oxygen mask and thighs of steel. It's better now that we don't have to carry him, but the Ball & Chain and I always know exactly whose turn it is to put him to bed. There's no reading of stories up there as it takes about half an hour to catch our breath after the ascent.

He's usually tired when we put him to bed, and gives one the impression that he'll be "out like a light". Unfortunately, most nights when we go to bed there is evidence of nocturnal activity. I often spend 20 minutes looking for my pyjamas, worrying about dementia because I know I only got a clean pair out that morning. After I've given up and donned a new pair I then find the original ones neatly "folded" on my pillow along with 10 or 12 cuddly whales, dogs and teddies. One night I walked into my bedroom to find my bed completely stripped. Now I'm not saying the Ball & Chain doesn't help around the house, but there's no way he's changing sheets at 10pm. What on earth? A quick peek into the bathroom confirmed my suspicions when I found one pillowcase on the floor. The little one had stuffed every piece of bedding (including duvet) down the laundry chute. This is quite a feat since the laundry chute was deliberately made too narrow for a teenager to stuff a toddler down. He must have had to feed the whole lot through a foot at a time. It's a bit worrying that no one heard anything.

I have long since learned to put away my sewing machine (which I use in my bedroom) and hide any scissors. Another night I left an inflated airbed in the hallway outside his room. It was obviously bothering him and he couldn't figure out how to deflate it, so he simply let out the air via a large hole made with my pinking sheers! My sink is occasionally full of small plastic animals that appear to have recently had a wash in my favourite hand cream. Sometimes they're to be found in the bath, making me think it's an invasion of enormous spiders, baby rats or whatever else can climb up a plughole. (Let's not go there.)

As with many American homes, I have a walk-in closet. Little guy obviously spends quite a lot of time in there as any shirt I pick out is buttoned up to the collar on the hanger. Since I'm the only one hanging my shirts up, I know that they don't start off like that. Most of them don't even stay on the hanger.

But to the point. The other night, as a result of his nocturnal naughtiness, I managed to hurt my back. With the firm reminder that nothing is too strange to occur in my world, I bet you can't come up with what happened. Remember, all things are possible. I would give the best answer (or even the right one) a prize but the postage these days is horrendous!

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