"Door opening, Door closing"

Figures I would miss the most hilarious 'Egg and Dumps' moment of all-time. Auntie Ba was the lucky winner of comedy classic/heart palpitation special this afternoon. Let me set the stage...
The past few days Auntie Ba and I have been trying to restore Grandpa's beachfront Florida condo to former glory. This has necessitated untold man hours of scrubbing, wiping, binning, laundering and all manner of domestic drudgery. This has subsequently meant that there have been many (too many) pockets of 'unsupervised monster time' in which Egg and Dumps have been able to do pretty much what they want.

As i have previously explained, they possess the uncanny ability to destruct and destroy in moments when a head is merely turned - let alone a few minutes of solo play. So you can imagine their delight this afternoon, when they took it upon themselves to quietly let themselves out of the condo (they can BOTH reach the door knob and turn it expertly...i guess someone forgot to lock it).

You can also imagine their joy at being able to reach the lift (elevator) button, and the satisfying accomplishment of having it light up and announce a soon-to-be-arriving ride. Anyway, as no one was there, it can't be said for certainty how the following potentially dangerous and heart-attack inducing situation occurred, but one moment we were scrubbing the toilet and the next we heard Egg screaming, "Help! Help!"

Auntie Ba got to ground zero first, and discovered a barefoot Dumpie in the back corner of the lift...by HIMSELF...clutching the plastic basket of sand buckets and toys, whilst Eggie was jumping up and down in the corridor upset that Dumpie was going to go down without him!

Luckily Auntie Ba was able to call upon her previous years as gymnast extrordinaire and leaped in before the big steel doors shut and my happily grinning 17 month old son was transported to God knows where.

(It does not bear thinking about the horror which would have ensued if we had tried to guess which floor the lift would stop at, which buttons Dumpie would press once inside by himself, and whether he might have been the victim of a spontaneous kidnapping. However it is also hard to imagine what some old pensioner might have thought upon alighting into the lift and seeing what would at first glance appear to be a midget on his way to a fun-filled day in the sun. Would she/he have questioned their sanity? Would they have tried to start up a pleasant conversation? Would they have made a mental note to discuss upping medication doses with their doctor next visit?)

At any rate, I arrived on the scene moments too late to catch a vision which according to Auntie Ba, is pretty much the funniest thing she has seen by the monsters yet. Dumpie has absolutely no fear and if anything seemed quite despondant that his exciting little adventure had been nipped in the bud. I'm sure that a "Mr. Magoo" stylee adventure would have transpired, and with a bit of luck he may even have found his way back to us...he does know that it's the number 9 button you press after all.

At any rate, we're off tomorrow...for better but most definately for worse, as we take to the skies for yet another 9.5 hour journey in charter flight hell back to London...where i'm told 'Dada' not-so-anxiously awaits our arrival. (He has apparently turned our dining table into a makeshift music studio. He has also queried whether he might keep the set-up indefinately. He has CLEARLY forgotten the reality of his situation and is in dire need of a reality check...which should take about - i dunno - five minutes upon our arrival?)