Great moments in parenting

Yesterday it was cold and drizzly, so James and Thomas and I spent most of the day inside.  (Thomas has been in the mood to eat about every hour and a half this week, which makes outings to distant places a bit tricky.)  We read a bunch of books and had a dance party, then drew pictures and broke out the hot pink Play-Doh.  Around 7 PM I started to feel pretty self-congratulatory about how well I had entertained everyone all day.

Oops.

James likes to have me read to him and/or play ball when I'm nursing Thomas.  Until yesterday, our ball games tended to involve him throwing me the ball and me rolling it back to him with my foot.  We have now instituted a no-kicking-balls-in-the-house-ever-again rule. 

Here's why:

We have a number of smallish, soft balls and one beach ball in the house.  James had been throwing me the small balls to kick to him, then grabbed the beach ball and threw it my way.  I cuffed it back at him with my foot.  

Let me interrupt myself at this point to explain that in our family room we have a countertop inset into part of the wall.  The radio is there, along with a blue china bowl, a potted plant, and a few other odds and ends.  Resting against the wall is a large intracoastal waterway map of the area where my family has gone to the beach each summer since the late 70s; the map is one of my favorite things in the house.

Somehow -- and I am still working out how this happened -- the beach ball left my foot, flew up in the air, knocked into the map, and caused the map to fly off its perch, spin through the air (astonishingly, without knocking over or breaking anything on the counter), and land on its back on the floor, also without breaking.

(The whole situation reminded me of the Palsgraf case, which all law students read their first year in law school.  You've either read it or don't need to, so I'll spare you the boring parts, but it's a case in which this guy was running with fireworks while trying to catch a train.  He jumped on the train but dropped the fireworks, which exploded, blasting into something that knocked into something that knocked into something else that hit yet another object that hit the station clock, which fell off the wall and smacked Mrs. Palsgraf in the head.  She sued.  The court held that the railway didn't owe her any money, because some things are just too weird.)

James shrieked, then burst out laughing and said "Boom!"