Christopher Babione

Made the mistake of buying the kids stuffed animal turtles.  On our first night back in the house, the kids were bouncing off the walls and running around like mad.  Having been staying in a hotel for about 3 months while our house was being redone, the kids had alot of energy to burn.

We were in my daughters’ room, I had just finished putting together some Ikea furniture and I was sitting on the floor.  All of the sudden, floop — something hit me in the head.  I look up, and my four year old is laughing her head off from the top bunk of her bunk bed.  I look down, and there is a turtle in my lap.  A reptilian ambush; death from above style.  As I was pick up the turtle, another floop.  My 4 year old was turning into a real Sun Tzu.

What was I to do, I had to counter.  I picked up the turtles and threw them up, grenade style.  That was it, turtles began to fly!  By that time the 2 year old and 12 year old joined in on the lets get daddy war.  I had no other option, so I brought out my secret weapon; pillow pals.  For the next ten minutes or so it was on like Donkey Kong.  Turtles flying, penguins flying, whales flying, bumbles flying, and whatever else was soft and within reach was flying.  The kids figured out that if they attacked me from different directions all at once, I was powerless.  Time for the big guns now — the pillows.  Pillows began to fly as well as the other stuffed friends.  Everyone laughing and having fun.  We all decided to call a cease fire when our guts hurt so bad from laughing that we could not take it any more.

We have been staying in a hotel for the past two months because our house is going through mold remediation and is basically being gutted and rebuilt.  The hotel is nice, we are in a multi-bedroom suite with a living room and a kitchenette.  Early on, we had to disconnect most of the phones in the room though because our two and four year old daughters liked to play telephone on them.  The hotel phones have an “emergency” button on them that they had pressed once already which caused the police to dispatch through a 911 uplink.

Living in the hotel for so long, though we are in a nice suite, is a trial for a family of 6 and a half.  No room for the kids to run around, there is no room for privacy, and the kids cannot help but to get on each other nerves quite often.

Last Friday, I received a call from my wife, letting me know that the cops had just been to the room on a 911 call.  Apparently, my 7 year old son had pushed my daughter off of a bed he was on.  My 4 year old daughter, being quite upset, ran to the one phone that we had connected, and pushed the emergency button.  She then proceeded to inform the 911 operator that her “brother was being mean” to her.  The 911 operator dispatched the boys in blue to the hotel.  Once in the room, they had to “check” things out to make sure everything was ok.  The only thing the officer could say was “Be nice to your sister” as he left.  I only wish I knew how to get a copy of the 911 call to hear it.