Pleasantville, Interrupted

I am astonished by the amount of time that can pass before I realize I forgot to post something funny that happened. It was probably about two weeks ago now, on a quiet Sunday morning. I was enjoying a cup of coffee, nursing the twins and writing on my laptop. Ok, I may have been perusing Facebook, but that's beside the fact.

My darling husband was outside mowing the lawn and Carter was playing peacefully in his toy room. The serenity didn't last long, because no sooner had I brought the white porcelain coffee mug to my lips, I heard the kitchen door slam. Carter had escaped.

With a sigh and a huff, I put down my cup of joe, “unlatched” a baby and hustled through the kitchen to look out the back door. There was no sign of him. Dressed in a t-shirt, pajama bottoms and my floor-length fleece robe, I slipped on a pair of Ben's oversized flip flops and high-tailed it out the back door, around towards the front of the house.

Now one thing you should know about our property,is that it is surrounded by a white fence. Through each picket I could see my little man, pushing his own lawn bubble blowing lawn mower and headed down our shared driveway. Panic mode set in and I started chasing him along the fence. The problem that posed itself, was the simple fact that there was a fence between us. My mind wandered to the threat of our neighbor pulling into the driveway at any moment and not seeing him, as well as the fact that I had left the babies inside, screaming their heads off!

As I ran down our sloping front yard, I could see Ben in the distance, on the other side of the fence, mowing down near the street. I breathed a sigh of relief, thinking he would see him, but quickly realized he was wearing headphones and was completely unaware of what was happening. I started running again, waving my arms to get his attention as my baby boy neared the bottom of the driveway.

In my haste, my robe had flung itself open and trailed behind me like a superhero's cape. I threw my arms up again frantically waving to Ben, when wouldn't you know it? I lost my drawers.

Fortunately, my husband saw the tail end of this commotion, stopped the mower and grabbed Mr. Wonderful before he headed downtown. Yup, only MY pants would fall down in the middle of my front yard, in a residential neighborhood, where folks were getting ready for church, grabbing their morning paper and walking their dogs.

I crouched, frozen in the middle of my front lawn, pants around my ankles and bathrobe firmly wrapped over my bare knees. I was laughing so hard I nearly peed my pants, and tears trickled out the corners of my eyes.

Looking both ways for friendly neighbors, I shimmied my jammies back on, slipped on my ridiculous footwear and sprinted (OK, lumbered) back into the house. Carter was banished to the outdoors with his father and thankfully, the twins had fallen asleep.

Lessons learned: Install an eye-hook lock on the kitchen door, encourage lawn mowing sans earphones and finally, always tighten drawstring on pants. One more for the record books, folks!