A Wood Stove Learning Curve

"I'm duuuuuuunnnnn!" he hollers and the back door slams.  There's a wet shuffle along the hall and the dancing out of the snow pants and the bragging to his brother as he passes the craft room doorway - "Zander, I did da snowboawd down da staiws and I didn't even wipe out untiwl da end!"  And with his two front teeth missing his mispronouncing is more pronounced and I kind of hope those teeth take forever to grow in because he's just so cute and there's no way he could ever say "THE" right now.

He is rosy and breathless as he bounces downstairs to share that same story of taking the Ninja Turtle snowboard down the five steps by the retaining wall.  "Where are all your wet things, Liam?" I ask him.

"Upstayors.  On da floowr."

"Can you bring them down by the fire so they dry out before school tomorrow?"

He blows out an annoyed breath but stomps back up to get them, returning with a wet, lumpy pile and proceeds to drop the whole thing right on top of the stove.

Hissing and fizzling and smoke rising and me: "GET IT OFF!!!  GET IT OFF!!!"

So ends the life of one well-traveled jacket

And there's fear on his face and he pulls it from it's torture and drops it on the ground and his eyebrows come together and there's a black mess of goo bubbling on the cast iron and the whole house fills with the smell of burning mushrooms and now he is the not-so-proud owner of a backless winter coat.

He's thinking about crying.  Worrying on his lip over it.  Checking my face for anger.  But I'm not angry at all.  Maybe it's because I know we have another hand-me-down coat that will take the place of this liquified death-pile or maybe it's because that huge gap in his mouth that makes a "th" impossible is so ridiculously adorable.  Whatever it is, he was forgiven before he offended.   I find it kind of funny and lesson learned - the stove is hot; don't put stuff on it.  The end.