Accidents Will Happen

Sean got his head stuck in a chair at dinner. It was one of those "everything happened so fast" dramatic moments. One minute, he was sitting at the dining room table at the beach house with the whole family. The next minute, he tilted his head back at just the wrong angle so as to get it stuck in the chair.


In the midst of an emergency, I'm very good at dealing with the situation. It's after the fact, when everything has settled, that things strike me as funny. Sean was screaming, his head was stuck, and PJ & I were working to get him free. Ditto ran in with the oil to lube his head in the hopes of slipping him out. My mother-in-law ran over and told us to just go ahead and break the chair. Which is exactly what PJ did. He snapped a piece of the chair off and got Sean's head out. Everyone started to relax. Except for my poor father-in-law, who needed his mother-in-law to fix him a martini after the event.


That's when I started laughing. In all of the chaos, everyone was trying to help. It turns out that most people were thinking lubrication. My sister-in-law, Julie, had brought in a tub of butter substitute. Our friend, Ditto, had run in with the oil. My father-in-law, in a state of panic, had arrived at the table with the vinegar. Apparently, he was unclear on which part of a salad will unstick toddler heads from random places.


In the end, everything worked out just fine. Sean was a little traumatized, but no worse for the wear. The chair was a lot little broken. My father-in-law was soothed by a good martini and we got a little chuckle at his expense. It's the kind of excitement that can only be caused by dining with our crazy gang.

Trust me. This will NOT remove toddler heads from furniture.