The Student Becomes the Teacher

Over the weekend, Gabe managed to do something that his predecessors failed to do, and I thought it was worth mentioning on here.

When Libby's entire family moved hither and yon, we inherited much of their furniture, including several pieces of bedroom furniture that had somehow managed to survive five children. Please keep in mind that one of these children was James, whom everyone compares Gabe to in terms of energy and raw destructive power.

Among these pieces of furniture was an armoire. Like many armoires, this one consisted of a large cabinet and a series of drawers (actually, that's probably the description of ALL armoires, not just "many," since, without those parts, it would be something else). Libby recalled often using the cabinet, as a child, as a hiding place whenever they played hide and seek--so this was a piece of furniture that saw some action. And I know it existed through much of the kids' childhoods because, inside the door, there is a giant E.T. sticker still plastered to it.

Saturday night, Gabe broke the door off that armoire. He managed to do what five children could not accomplish in two decades. And he's just three years old.

The door. Well, ex-door. Now it is a piece of flat lumber with a door nob in it. And an E.T. sticker on the back.

Now, I wanted everyone to be clear here. He didn't just break the hinges off or pull them from their moorings. Nor did he simply detach the piece of wood that made up the frame of the door on that side from the top and bottom frame pieces. He actually splintered the hinge side frame board, making it all but impossible to fix. Undoubtedly, I will still TRY to fix it, because otherwise we have an armoire without a door, which is a bit unsightly. But I'm not optimistic about my chances.

How we found out that it was broken was actually a pretty amusing story, and is evidence that Gabe still needs to work on his lying skills if he ever expects to actually get away with anything.

See, we didn't hear anything. There was no loud crash or bang. There was no sound of splintering wood that filtered down from the bedroom. What he was doing, exactly, we have no idea, and he wouldn't fill us in on any of the details. This is how it went down.

Libby and I were sitting downstairs. We hear a few slowly descending steps from the staircase as Gabe made very deliberate progress down the stairs. But we didn't think anything of this. He will often play with his cars on the top stairs, so we often hear him coming down just one or two stairs and then pausing for long periods of time. This time, apparently, he was coming down slowly because he was reluctant to share with us the breaking news.

Then he said, "Daddy, I didn't break the door."

At first I didn't realize this was a cover-up lie and not just some random statement. He often will say things out of the blue that don't seem to make sense--possibly just to remind us that he HASN'T done some destructive act that he COULD have done, or, possibly, we just haven't found all the things he's broken yet.

"That's good, bub," I said. "We don't need any broken doors."

A few moments of silence followed during which we didn't hear him come down anymore stairs or go back up them. Apparently, whatever was on his mind was still unresolved. "Daddy," he eventually said. "You don't get mad because I didn't break the door."

And then I knew something was up. He wouldn't have brought it up a second time if it wasn't relevant. So I went upstairs and I found the door standing up along the wall and the splintered remains still attached and ajar on the armoire.

I sighed, as I often do, and asked, "How did you not break this door?"

"I DIDN'T break the door," he insisted. And I grilled him for another minute or two but couldn't get anymore information out of him than that. I have to assume that he climbed inside the cabinet and started hanging on the door or something. Though, how he managed to break it like that without crashing to the ground--which we would have clearly heard downstairs--is beyond me. Maybe, the fact that we never heard a crash is proof that, in fact, he DIDN'T break the door. Maybe he just opened it and it spontaneous splintered. Maybe the hinge-side frame board had finally had enough of the rest of the door and broke off ties, and Gabe had just been there to catch the door as it came down.

I don't know, but we still have to be moderately impressed with the fact that he has exceeded the previous generation in terms of his destructive capabilities. Because, honestly, there isn't much else that we can be impressed about with this whole affair, and sometimes you just have to cling to what you've got.